Nurse Quarantined In Ebola Scare: I Felt Treated ‘As If I Was A Criminal’

Participants help each other with their suits during a training course to instruct non-governmental organisation (NGO) workers and doctors on how to deal with the Ebola virus in Brussels on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014. Th... Participants help each other with their suits during a training course to instruct non-governmental organisation (NGO) workers and doctors on how to deal with the Ebola virus in Brussels on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014. The course, provided by Doctors Without Borders, trains volunteer and medical personnel on precautions to take when entering a zone that contains the Ebola virus.(AP Photo/Olivier Matthys) MORE LESS
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A nurse who was quarantined in New Jersey after returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa described the experience in a harrowing first-person account published Saturday.

The Dallas Morning News published the narrative from Kaci Hickox, who worked in Sierra Leone for Doctors Without Borders. She showed no symptoms upon her return, but the hospital is requiring her to remain quarantine for the 21 days that will ensure she does not have the disease.

“This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me,” Hickox wrote.

One after another, people asked me questions. Some introduced themselves, some didn’t. One man who must have been an immigration officer because he was wearing a weapon belt that I could see protruding from his white coveralls barked questions at me as if I was a criminal.

Two other officials asked about my work in Sierra Leone. One of them was from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They scribbled notes in the margins of their form, a form that appeared to be inadequate for the many details they are collecting.

I was tired, hungry and confused, but I tried to remain calm. My temperature was taken using a forehead scanner and it read a temperature of 98. I was feeling physically healthy but emotionally exhausted.

Three hours passed. No one seemed to be in charge. No one would tell me what was going on or what would happen to me.

“The epidemic continues to ravage West Africa. Recently, the World Health Organization announced that as many as 15,000 people have died from Ebola,” Hickox said. “We need more health care workers to help fight the epidemic in West Africa. The U.S. must treat returning health care workers with dignity and humanity.”

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  1. This shows clearly the inherent danger is such mandatory quarantine orders.

    Everyone in America, more or less, is over-reacting to this issue.

    There is no “Ebola crisis” in America.

    Two people—one a Liberian and one American doctor working in Guinea—came to the US and then became symptomatic.
    Several other health care workers were sent here after being symptomatic in Africa.

    Two nurses in Dallas became infected after treating the Liberian (who died) because the Dallas hospital was lax about the proper procedures that should have been followed.

    No one else has become infected in the US—and no one is likely to be infected in the US.

    The media has shamelessly fanned the flames of fear and has done little to explain to people that they cannot catch Ebola casually .
    Many Americans believe it’s airborne—and the media has done little to disabuse them of that false idea.

    And the GOP has been far worse than the mass media, using the issue for political gain and claiming that they know how to respond to the situation, even though they’re not medical professionals.

    (But when it comes to climate change, they avoid the issue because they’re “not scientists.”)

    This is such an over-hyped story, because the average American is far more likely to be struck by lightning than to be infected with Ebola.

  2. Avatar for jw1 jw1 says:

    A nurse who was quarantined in New Jersey after returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa described the experience in a harrowing first-person account published Saturday.

    Imagine that.
    People in Newark acting crass, disrespectful, and put-out.

    jw1

  3. All because of Chris Christie’s Presidential ambitions.

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