A CARE home worker who caught the Covid-19 coronavirus in May has praised the doctors and nursing staff who saved her life.

Adriana Kurti, 45, spent nearly two weeks in a coma at the Royal United Hospital in Bath before making a recovery from the deadly virus.

Mrs Kurti, who comes from Albania, was rushed to the RUH on Friday, May 29 after experiencing severe breathing difficulties.

“I had a sore throat but normally suffer from tonsillitis,” said Mrs Kurti, who works as a senior care assistant at the Wingfield care home in Trowbridge.

“I told the doctor that I thought it was tonsillitis and he gave me some antibiotics and told me to see how I felt and then give him another call.

“But by the Thursday I was very hot and by May 29 I couldn’t breathe properly. I had to call 999 and they came to take me into hospital.

“My temperature was 40.9 degrees Centigrade and I was struggling to breathe. I had a terrible nosebleed and pneumonia.

“I was taken straight into intensive care and was in a coma for about 13-14 days.

“I could hear the noise of people around me talking but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.”

Mrs Kurti believes she caught the deadly virus at the Wingfield care home as other staff were taken ill during the same week.

During her stay in the RUH she was given oxygen to begin with and then put on new medication as she came out of the coma.

Mrs Kurti, of Upper Broad Street, Trowbridge, has nothing but praise for the RUH doctors and nurses.

She said: “They were brilliant. They saved my life. I don’t know how to thank the doctors and nurses there.

“They gave me plasma transfusions and whatever they did to me, it worked.

“They gave 150 per cent. The care the doctors and nurses gave me was fantastic.”

Ironically, staff at the Wingfield care home had tested negative for Covid-19 in the week before Mrs Kurti contracted the virus.

Since leaving hospital in the third week of June she has been recovering at home.

She is being cared for by her 40-year-old husband Fatmir Kurti, who comes from the Republic of Kosovo in south-east Europe.

“I have been out walking in the park to get my strength back,” said Mrs Kurti, who hopes to go back to work at the end of August.

She trained as a nurse in Albania and plans to update her nursing qualification so that she can work in a hospital rather than in a care home when she is fully recovered.

At present, she only receives statutory sick pay from the Government and says she needs to go back to work to help pay the household bills and the mortgage.