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."

[MissyWrite]

(d) Apprehension and examination of persons reasonably believed to be infected

42 U.S.C.

United States Code, 2011 Edition

Title 42 - THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE

CHAPTER 6A - PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

SUBCHAPTER II - GENERAL POWERS AND DUTIES

Part G - Quarantine and Inspection

Sec. 264 - Regulations to control communicable diseases

264. Regulations to control communicable diseases

(1) Regulations prescribed under this section may provide for the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease in a qualifying stage and (A) to be moving or about to move from a State to another State; or (B) to be a probable source of infection to individuals who, while infected with such disease in a qualifying stage, will be moving from a State to another State. Such regulations may provide that if upon examination any such individual is found to be infected, he may be detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary. For purposes of this subsection, the term “State” includes, in addition to the several States, only the District of Columbia.

(2) For purposes of this subsection, the term “qualifying stage”, with respect to a communicable disease, means that such disease—

(A) is in a communicable stage; or

(B) is in a precommunicable stage, if the disease would be likely to cause a public health emergency if transmitted to other individuals.

The quarantined nurse has NOT been found to be infected.

I just read that the tent she is being detained in is NOT heated. Low of 45 degrees forecast for tonight.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

Governor Cuomo( N.Y.- R) has loosened the quarantine to 21 days at home with twice daily visits from health department officials.

The nurse Kaci is still in a tent outside of an unnamed New Jersey hospital.

If the CDC could provide a paid 21 day period of downtime for Ebola HCW to rest and recuperate from what had to be a harrowing experience, and make it posh and a reward for their service, not an incarceration, while providing close monitoring for signs of illness, wouldn't that be beneficial in terms of understanding the progression of the illness and refining treatment protocols?

[chadrn65]

I read that the tent is actually inside a building.

Did anyone see 60 Minutes tonight? Nurses from Dallas speaking about their 1st Ebola patient at Presby.

[chadrn65]

"Health care worker Kaci Hickox shared photos of her Ebola isolation tent inside a Newark hospital, where she has been quarantined after returning from West Africa. WFAA"

Inside the Kaci Hickox Ebola quarantine tent

Picture of inside tent in beginning.

[OCNRN63, RN]

"Health care worker Kaci Hickox shared photos of her Ebola isolation tent inside a Newark hospital, where she has been quarantined after returning from West Africa. WFAA"

Inside the Kaci Hickox Ebola quarantine tent

Picture of inside tent in beginning.

​Well, it's big of them that they're not making her freeze.

[Semolina]

Cuomo seems to be backing down a bit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/nyregion/ebola-quarantine.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSumLargeMedia&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Merged threads to keep content together.

[Do-over, ASN, RN]

I will be willing to volunteer to care for Ebola patients when/if that time comes. I am far more afraid of false imprisonment by Chicken Little, though, for doing so.

How long have international HCW been traveling from Ebola stricken regions back to the west? Maybe since the 1970s?

Further, there are probably 1000 things MUCH MORE likely to kill me in the next week than Ebola.

[Do-over, ASN, RN]

PS - God bless Kaci Hickox, and all the others willing to go and to serve. That are willing to touch the untouchable.

[amoLucia]

Haven't read all the other posts here, but this mandatory quarantining has given me the creeps. When I saw Cuomo & Christie on TV all I could think of was the mandatory internment camps for the Japanese during WWII.

Wonder if Mother Theresa would have been quarantined?

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

I don't think any nurse or health care provider would argue with the outrage of those posting here. I know I won't. I haven't seen a single post that I don't agree with in some measure.

The problem is, the majority of the country is not in health care. Most people are just plain old middle class people, with a minimal understanding of how you catch any contagion. They don't know for sure, and they don't believe half of what anybody is saying. The only thing they know for sure, is the people who've contracted Ebola in the US are healthcare providers.

I don't look down my nose at people who're scared or misinformed. None of us are going to change their minds. Is it a good thing to feed into public hysteria, and force quarantine on returning Ebola healthcare providers? I don't know. Maybe not.

Is it a good thing to ignore the public's fear and tell them they're morons? I think not. Definitely not if you're a politician.

I don't think anybody here is wrong. I'm just uncomfortable with the superior attitude of those posting about "morons".

[PMFB-RN, RN]

I am guessing that every one of the NURSES ( it hasn't escaped me that ONLY nurses have actually gotten Ebola in the USA, and that ONLY a NURSE has been imprisoned) who are returning from caring for Ebola patients is going to smarten up and fly into Canada and enter the US lysing about where they have been. That would be the normal, expected reaction to the kidnapping of this nurse.