Ebola crisis: US nurse speaks out against ‘prison-like’ quarantine conditions
HEALTH workers tackling Ebola are being held in ‘prison-like’ conditions in ‘inhumane’ quarantine tents when they return to the US.
A US nurse has spoken out about the “prison-like” condition she was forced to endure after returning from West Africa where she treated Ebola victims.
Kaci Hickox was the first nurse forcibly quarantined in New Jersey after returning from West Africa, and has described her isolation conditions as “inhumane”.
Deprived of a flushing toilet, shower, and communication with her lawyer, Ms Hickox has described the quarantine conditions she was forced into as “completely unacceptable” and “prison-like”.
Quarantined, asymptomatic nurse in NJ sent CNN these photos of her current living quarters. #Ebola pic.twitter.com/ieaZ7DLcKq
— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) October 26, 2014
“This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated,” she told CNN.
“To put me through this emotional and physical stress is completely unacceptable.”
Ms Hickox was placed in a quarantine tent after presenting with a mild fever, but says her temperature was only raised because she was flustered at the frenzied airport situation.
“The tent has a window, and doctors talk to me in normal clothes from outside the window. 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,” she said.
“Everyone keeps asking how I’m feeling physically, and of course I’m fine physically, but I don’t think most people understand what it’s like to be alone in a tent, and decisions are being made that don’t make sense and show no compassion.”
Ms Hickox said she feared health workers would be discouraged from travelling to West Africa to help tackle the epidemic.
“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,” she wrote in an essay in the Dallas Morning News.
“I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganisation, fear, and most frightening quarantine.”
A US disease expert has also argued against the mandatory 21-day quarantining of medical workers, saying it was unnecessary and agreed it could discourage workers.
“The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health workers, so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable for them to even volunteer to go,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Australian health workers, or anyone travelling from Ebola-hit regions, are currently required to home-isolate, monitor their own condition and notify health authorities if they experience any symptoms consistent with the Ebola virus.
The World Health Organization said more than 10,000 people have been infected with Ebola in the outbreak that came to light last March, and nearly half of them have died, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
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