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Once again, it is a nurse who has taken the Ebola media spotlight this week. Kaci Hickox, a nurse who cared for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone found herself quarantined against her will in New Jersey upon her return to the US, in spite of the fact that she tested negative for the virus. After a 3 day isolation in less than desirable accommodations, she was transported home where she was supposed to remain under home quarantine but is now declaring that the quarantine is unnecessary and counterproductive, and is openly defying the order by going out in public.
Additional breaches in voluntary quarantine from those returning from Ebola-plagued Africa occurred when NBC medical correspondent, Dr. Nancy Snyderman in New Jersey and Dr. Craig Spencer in New York left their homes and ventured out into public spaces.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called for voluntary home quarantine for workers with the highest risk for Ebola infection. It also specified that most medical personnel returning from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea would not need to be kept in isolation.
In spite of this, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, mandated a 21-day mandatory quarantine policy for all healthcare workers exposed to Ebola. Although this move has received much criticism, it did get the support of Dr. Bruce Beutler, an American doctor and researcher and Nobel Prize winner for Medicine and Physiology for his work researching the the body’s overall immune system. He is currently the Director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Center in Dallas. He favors Christie’s quarantine policy “because it’s not entirely clear that they can’t transmit the disease,” referring to asymptomatic healthcare workers like Kaci Hickox.
New York and Illinois have also have followed suit and mandated mandatory 21-day home quarantine policies. Although there is plenty of scientific evidence indicating there’s very little chance that a random person will contract Ebola unless they touch bodily fluids of an infected person, the thought is that the authorities need to do something to calm Americans’ fears. As Mike Osterholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, says, "You want to try to eliminate not just real risk, but perceived risk."
There are thoughts on both sides of this issue which has led to heated discussions at times. There are concerns about the potential impact with both pathways of re-entry requirements for Ebola healthcare workers. What are your thoughts about this? Please take our survey to share your opinions. Let your voice be heard.
Lol...I think you must be one of those very positive and perky nurses. I bet you are always happy at work. You have taken every criticism and tried to be positive about.
Good for you!
I am more of the grumpy dwarf type...
Come on over to the perky side! We have rainbows and unicorns here... heehee!
Just wanted to point out that I was the first person to answer your question and I did it without ridicule. I'm sorry that other posters were less polite.
Come on over to the perky side! We have rainbows and unicorns here... heehee!
Nope, it is all about balance. My coworkers and family would think I was doing drugs, if I ever started being that positive. I am more of comical grump most of the time.
She did not follow the CDC guidelines, nor the guidelines set up and established by medical professionals and scientists. Quite frankly, if you work in any position of the health care profession - and you refuse to follow the codes/safety/ethics you should be barred from any future practices. The guidelines that have been outlined are for the protection of everyone - and the only kind of individual that would argue and dispute what is being asked of them, whether it is to not incite fear/panic or to ensure there is no chance of spreading an infectious biological agent, is either someone looking for publicity and controversy or someone that has 0 concern for other people in their community and country for that matter.
There should be no alternative to this situation. She should be stripped of her ability to function in an environment - that others are looking for her to aid their illness or recovery - her story may show many things, but as far as a health care professional, she is a charlatan
So the scientific opinion of a Nobel Prize winning physician who has studied Ebola is not significant?
There was also an expert that said ebola could develop into being transmitted in the air. That doesn't mean he was right or that it was clinically plausible.
This quarantine is about politics not scientific evidence. What we need to do is control the ebola outbreaks in Africa, and all these quarantines of asymptomatic caretakers is doing is discouraging healthcare providers from volunteering in Africa when and where we need them most.
I am not an expert. I have read the research and I am confident in the science behind the viral transmission.
For the record, he has published a major study on Ebola, he was part of the team that discovered TNF.
Sent from my iPhone.
As this Nobel Prize winning physician's expertise is greater than yours (I understand you are a nurse practitioner), or mine, I will defer to his opinion. You are free to continue to argue that his opinion is not scientifically valid.
I think you should do some reading about Ebola and scientific facts before citing your opinion on what politics are, and facts about what virologists have uncovered about this virus. Opinion in the matter is a dime a dozen - plenty of people are being infected in Africa because they have their own opinions of what is safe and what is not - over what is fact. And the virus is still spreading.
She did not follow the CDC guidelines, nor the guidelines set up and established by medical professionals and scientists. Quite frankly, if you work in any position of the health care profession - and you refuse to follow the codes/safety/ethics you should be barred from any future practices. The guidelines that have been outlined are for the protection of everyone - and the only kind of individual that would argue and dispute what is being asked of them, whether it is to not incite fear/panic or to ensure there is no chance of spreading an infectious biological agent, is either someone looking for publicity and controversy or someone that has 0 concern for other people in their community and country for that matter.
There should be no alternative to this situation. She should be stripped of her ability to function in an environment - that others are looking for her to aid their illness or recovery - her story may show many things, but as far as a health care professional, she is a charlatan
Maine and New York did not follow the law when they forcibly quarantined her and failed to show that she was direct public health threat utilizing current scientific evidence on ebola.
Tina, RN
513 Posts
Come on over to the perky side! We have rainbows and unicorns here... heehee!