Nurse quarantined under Ebola watch says she was treated like ‘a criminal’

An American nurse wrote a scathing account that was published in a U.S. newspaper of her treatment after being put in isolation in a New Jersey hospital following a stint caring for Ebola patients in West Africa, saying she was made to feel like “a criminal.” Kaci Hickox was the first person to enter mandatory 21-day quarantine for medical staff returning to parts of the United States who may have had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, the epicentre of the outbreak that has killed nearly 5,000 people. The new rules took effect in New York and New Jersey on Friday, the same day Hickox returned. Her account recalled the ordeal that began with her “grueling” two-day journey from Sierra Leone back to the United States.

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.

Kaci Hickox, writing in the Dallas Morning News

Doctors Without Borders said it was “very concerned about the conditions and uncertainty she is facing.” Sophie Delaunay, executive director of MSF, said there is a “notable lack of clarity” about the new guidelines announced in New York and New Jersey. The two U.S. states ordered mandatory quarantine for returning medics after a doctor, Craig Spencer, 33, on Thursday became the first confirmed case of Ebola in New York. He was immediately placed in isolation and on Saturday his condition had deteriorated slightly but health officials stressed that was the “next phase” of the illness and was expected.

I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine.

Kaci Hickox

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