RN Detained and Quarantined As Ebola Hysteria Reaches a New Low

[MissyWrite]

NJ and NY have instituted a policy of placing health workers into mandatory 21-day quarantine upon their return from West Africa if they came into contact with Ebola patients.

This new policy is a reaction to unfounded public hysteria surrounding Dr. Craig Spencer's return to NYC after working with Doctors Without Borders, and his subsequent diagnosis of Ebola, after he had taken the subway and gone bowling. People fear Ebola can be spread through casual contact with an asymptomatic person, even though public health experts say there's plenty of scientific evidence indicating that isn't the case.

Is this policy based on the facts about Ebola transmission? Is it based on science? No, it's not, and in fact no one is saying that it is:

"Voluntary quarantine is almost an oxymoron," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. "We've seen what happens. ... You ride a subway. You ride a bus. You could infect hundreds and hundreds of people."

"Public health experts say there's plenty of scientific evidence indicating that there's very little chance that a random person will get Ebola, unless they are in very close contact -- close enough to share bodily fluids -- with someone who has it.

Still, there's also a sense that authorities have to do something because of Americans' fears -- rational or not -- and belief that the country is better off being safe than sorry.

Osterholm says, "You want to try to eliminate not just real risk, but perceived risk."

Mike Osterholm is an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota.

Because of this irrational "perceived" risk, Kaci Hickox, 33, an RN who has been caring for Ebola patients while on assignment with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, was detained at the airport, interrogated for hours, and placed in mandatory quarantine at a New Jersey hospital upon her return to the U.S. on Friday.

She has tested negative in a preliminary test for Ebola, and she does not have a fever, but the hospital says she will remain under mandatory quarantine for 21 days. She is not allowed to leave the hospital, unless officials reconsider that decision.

Here are some excerpts from her experience so far:

I am a nurse who has just returned to the U.S. after working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone - an Ebola-affected country. I have been quarantined in New Jersey. This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me...

I arrived at the Newark Liberty International Airport around 1 p.m. on Friday, after a grueling two-day journey from Sierra Leone. I walked up to the immigration official...

I told him that I have traveled from Sierra Leone and he replied, a little less enthusiastically: "No problem. They are probably going to ask you a few questions."...

He put on gloves and a mask and called someone. Then he escorted me to the quarantine office a few yards away. I was told to sit down. Everyone that came out of the offices was hurrying from room to room in white protective coveralls, gloves, masks, and a disposable face shield.

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.

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.

I called my family to let them know that I was OK. I was hungry and thirsty and asked for something to eat and drink. I was given a granola bar and some water. I wondered what I had done wrong.

Four hours after I landed at the airport, an official approached me with a forehead scanner. My cheeks were flushed, I was upset at being held with no explanation. The scanner recorded my temperature as 101. The female officer looked smug. "You have a fever now," she said. I explained that an oral thermometer would be more accurate and that the forehead scanner was recording an elevated temperature because I was flushed and upset.

I was left alone in the room for another three hours. At around 7 p.m., I was told that I must go to a local hospital. I asked for the name and address of the facility. I realized that information was only shared with me if I asked.

Eight police cars escorted me to the University Hospital in Newark. Sirens blared, lights flashed. Again, I wondered what I had done wrong.

At the hospital, I was escorted to a tent that sat outside of the building. The infectious disease and emergency department doctors took my temperature and other vitals and looked puzzled. "Your temperature is 98.6," they said. "You don't have a fever but we were told you had a fever."

After my temperature was recorded as 98.6 on the oral thermometer, the doctor decided to see what the forehead scanner records. It read 101. The doctor felts my neck and looked at the temperature again. "There's no way you have a fever," he said. "Your face is just flushed."

My blood was taken and tested for Ebola. It came back negative........

http://www.dallasnews.com/ebola/headlines/20141025-uta-grad-isolated-at-new-jersey-hospital-as-part-of-ebola-quarantine.ece

This is what happens to nurses when public ignorance and hysteria is placated by politicians.

We've already seen nurses blamed for just about everything Ebola-related since the first case in Dallas, and now we see a nurse being held against her will, for no reason except to make scared people "feel safer."

"It does present serious civil liberties questions," said Norman Siegel, a civil liberties lawyer in New York and the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "Historically, we've had these kinds of issues occur previously, and the courts then resolved the individual liberty issue against the larger concerns of the public's health concerns. So it then becomes a factual issue, the fact that she tested negative."

"It's completely unnecessary," said Harvard's Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute).

"I'm a believer in an abundance of caution but I'm not a believer of an abundance of idiocy."

[Susie2310]

What is the scientific, evidence based logic to keep her in quarantine?

If medical experts are not certain as to how the disease is transmitted from person to person, and a medical professional who recently returned from caring for Ebola patients has tested positive for Ebola along with other health care workers who have cared for Ebola patients in this country, public health authorities, who are charged with the protection of the general public's health, would prefer to exceed in being cautious, then to be deficient.

[OCNRN63, RN]

I don't know where the misinformation is, but this nurse's attorney is indeed working on her case right now. She also has a computer and cell phone, reading material and whatever takeout food she requests. I simply said we can't have it both ways; I didn't condone anything.

I read it somewhere else here that she was being refused contact with her attorney and is basically stuck in an area with no working toilet, no television, etc.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

I don't know where the misinformation is, but this nurse's attorney is indeed working on her case right now. She also has a computer and cell phone, reading material and whatever takeout food she requests. I simply said we can't have it both ways; I didn't condone anything.

According to the link from CNN I posted earlier, she has not seen her attorney through the windows of the tent like the only way she has seen medical personnel, so while he may be working on her case it doesn't mean she has spoken to or seen him. Also according to the article, the hospital has not provided a TV or reading materials, and she is basically staring at the walls. Also noted in the article is

Her life in quarantine

She's not allowed to have her luggage and was given paper scrubs to wear. Hickox said she has no shower, no flushable toilet and the hospital gave her no television or any reading material. Mostly, she says, she stares at the walls.

On Sunday afternoon, the hospital issued an update saying "the patient has computer access, use of her cell phone, reading material (magazines, newspaper) and requested and has received take-out food and drink."

Hickox said she's not allowed to see her lawyer or anyone else.

"The tent has a window, and doctors talk to me in normal clothes from outside the window," she says. "So if there's no risk to them talking to me from outside the window, it doesn't make any sense that my lawyer wouldn't be able to do the same."

Bolded added after my original post; at this point, it's a bit of he said/she said, and when was that provided? After she initially went to the media?

[OCNRN63, RN]

Quarantined nurse knocks Ebola policy - CNN.com

So she now has a cell phone and computer access. Take out and reading materials. She has no flushable toilet, no shower and, per CNN, is not being allowed to speak to her attorney. That makes me think that the hospital is afraid that they may be in trouble down the road for the way she is being held.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

As of yesterday, O'Hare in Chicago now has the same quarantine policy for HCW coming from Congo Sierra Leone and Liberia per order of their governor. Dulles and Atlanta are the only international hubs where passengers who are HCW from these countries can enter the country and not be

placed in quarantine.

Dulles OHare JFK Newark and Atlanta are the only US international hubs and point of entry for travelers from the countries with an Ebola outbreak. That was decided on 10/23 but I don't think it was reported in the news.

[MissyWrite]

The whole thing is so crazy! And the fact that this quarantined nurse is in a tent-like structure, with no running water, no shower, no flushing toilet is beyond belief. Couldn't they at least put her in a hospital isolation room? I guess that would be too expensive! She's really being treated horrendously! And the fact that she can't meet with her lawyer (through the tent window, as she does with her doctors) is disturbing.

Even murderers get lawyers and flushing toilets.

Gov. Christie said he "hopes she recovers soon." She asked what exactly she was she supposed to recover from. He also said she was "obviously ill." He knows the power of a few well-chosen words and phrases that will stick in the public's mind. What a manipulator.

He also apologized for the 'inconvenience.' INCONVENIENCE? She's being held for no reason, in a tent with no plumbing, she has no access to her lawyer, and she has lost her FREEDOM for no reason. That's an inconvenience???

I also heard Christie say that any health worker should have NO problem with a situation like that. What are we, martyrs and slaves who don't deserve the rights everyone else enjoys?

Who wants a leader who arbitrarily takes people's basic rights from them for no reason?

Thank goodness she insisted on keeping her cell phone!

SHE IS BEING TREATED LIKE BENTLEY THE EBOLA DOG.

[MissyWrite]

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

"Especially those who give up freedom for FALSE security!"

~ Missy Write

[OCNRN63, RN]

The dog got treated better.

It's going to be down in the 50s at night; it's going to be cold out there. I can't imagine how rank it's going to get in there with no shower, no flushable toilet, etc. How ridiculous. She's not sick.

ETA: Add to that, she's in paper scrubs. In a tent.

[chadrn65]

"Hickox's confinement raises “serious constitutional and civil liberties issues,” given that she remains asymptomatic and has not tested positive for Ebola, her attorney Norman Siegel, a prominent civil liberties lawyer, said on Sunday"

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/26/us-health-ebola-usa-idUSKBN0IF03L20141026

[MissyWrite]

she's in paper scrubs.

Well, you know, cloth scrubs have to be laundered, and you wouldn't want to infect thousands of people! Or waste twenty bucks on them each day and just toss them in the incinerator.

PAPER scrubs, even an orange jumpsuit would be more comfortable than that.

It feels as if they're treating her like dirt on purpose. Could they do any worse?

[PMFB-RN, RN]

NJ and NY have instituted a policy of placing health workers into mandatory 21-day quarantine upon their return from West Africa if they came into contact with Ebola patients.

It's really no surprise that its NJ & NY who are the first to (over) react in a cowardly fashion.

Apparently being a nurse is grounds to be kidnapped.

If I were in her shoes I would attempt to escape via every method available to me. I would also be keeping detailed records to be used later in the false arrest / kidnapping / violation of civil rights law suit.

[TheNurseyNurse]

It all really is a little crazy.