Posted on 10/26/2014 12:13:14 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I read this account of Kaci Hickox, a nurse for Doctors without Borders who returned from West Africa and was placed in quarantine as a result of the new policy adopted by New Jersey, with a growing sense of outrage and disgust.
She says there’s “disorganization” and “fear.” She says people treated her “like a criminal.” She says she worries that other health workers returning from Africa will also be put upon.
The fact that all four cases of Ebola in America are directly connected to returning health care workers from Africa doesn’t seem to penetrate; that the routine screening done at the airport didn’t detect Ebola in either Thomas Duncan or Dr. Spencer. Hickox seems perfectly willing to take a chance that health care workers returning from Africa don’t have the disease and should be able to walk around freely while “self-monitoring” their condition.
What a brave woman — who takes chances with other people’s lives. I don’t care how small the chance of contagion is — it is the responsibility of authorities to bring the chance of anyone else getting sick as close to zero as humanly possible.
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 at the airport and was greeted with a big smile and a “hello.”
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.
Imagine that! One of her big complaints is that some of the airport screeners didn’t introduce themselves to her. Sheesh.
Two other officials asked about my work in Sierra Leone. One of them was from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They scribbled notes in the margins of their form, a form that appeared to be inadequate for the many details they are collecting.
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.
She wondered what she had done wrong? She just returned from ground zero of the most deadly outbreak of Ebola in history – a disease with a 70% mortality rate – and she wonders what all the fuss is about?
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 guess we’ll have to take the word of Hickox that the officer looked “smug.” She couldn’t have been imagining that, right?
Eight police cars escorted me to the University Hospital in Newark. Sirens blared, lights flashed. Again, I wondered what I had done wrong.
I had spent a month watching children die, alone. I had witnessed human tragedy unfold before my eyes. I had tried to help when much of the world has looked on and done nothing.
Hickox should be commended for her service. She should be condemned for her martyr complex.
The entire account of her return is ridiculously subjective — full of characterizations of screening personnel that can’t be proven and are almost certainly exaggerated. Her main beef appears to me to be that she wasn’t accorded the deference she believed was her due as a result of her tour of duty in Africa.
No doubt she expected a hero’s welcome — perhaps a parade for her selfless acts. Sorry, but this self-pitying, whining account of her return elicits only disgust from me. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on someone who put themselves in danger to treat the afflicted.
But her attitude is reminiscent of many in this country who seem to think it more important to give the appearance of not panicking, rather than taking common-sense precautions to prevent even one more American from being afflicted with this disease. That’s the bottom line. And if some screening personnel don’t have the interpersonal skills to make Hickox feel at home and relaxed, I’d only say we didn’t hire these people to act like Dr. Phil; we’re asking them to expose themselves to possible carriers of Ebola. If it were me, I wouldn’t be all smiles and sunshine either.
Her “job” was most likely a public policy agent for shape and change if ya know what I’m saying?
If you are sympathetic to a need you think isn't being addressed and can contribute w/o fanfare, that's laudable ... self-aggrandizement & faux compassion is not.
Video for gaddafi tent in new jersey www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6AKMp0opEA
Don’t care for the tone of this article. Being a volunteer to help others is NOT a criminal act.
We will all accept reasonable and robust controls to protect us from Ebola. They don’t need to be jerks about it...
Have you seen her selfies? There’s nothing wrong with her accommodations. Oh, boo-hoo, a portable toilet and she has to do a “whore’s bath” until they get her set up with a shower which, undoubtedly, will be tomorrow. Her mother warned her that she’d be quarantined and she responded “Oh, that won’t happen to me.” Well, it did, and she’s stuck with it.
Tell that to my First Sergeant. I've deployed to worse.
/johnny
https://www.bon.texas.gov/forms/rninq.asp
She graduated school in Texas. According to the Texas State Board of Nursing, there’s an RN with her name with a residence in Grapevine.
Can’t say for sure it’s her.
Hmmm. Thank You.
but she needs to be comfortable too.
_______________________________________________
Why ???
Will that stop her from giving Ebola to my grandchildren ???
if shes comfy ???
maybe I could go tuck her in ???
and slap her silly selfish self a couple of good ones...
According to a licensure search of her name on the Maine State Board of Nursing site, she is not licensed to practice nursing in Maine, either as a registered nurse or as an LPN. As a test, I also searched my own name only(without my license #), and was successful, so if she was licensed I would have gotten a hit.
It’s possible she was only planning to live here for a short while and has never worked here.
Fort Kent is a small Acadian(French settlers here, similar to Cajuns except colder and no gators)town in the St. John river valley. Hopefully she’ll be seriously shunned and discouraged from staying in Maine. To get from Newark to here she’d have to take a small aircraft(seriously close quarters) from Boston to Presque Isle and then drive to Ft. Kent(no doubt making lots of stops along the way).
This has been an eye- opener for me, I kinda thought we were safe up here, but Ebola is just a 2 day plane ride away evidently.
Mrs. AV
What’s your evidence?
Good one.
Mrs. AV
If she works for the fedgov (CDC), then she doesn’t have to be licensed in the state she works in.
The Fedgov (usually the VA) will let you practice at one of its facilities so long as you are licensed - even if not in the state where the facility is located.
That’s different from most nurses who must be licensed to practice in the state where they work.
So. If she works for the fedgov and is licensed in Texas, she may not have bothered to get a license where she actually lives and works. It wouldn’t be necessary.
Interesting, thanks for the info.
I remember Freiden at some point prior to Ebola coming here mentioned that there were 130 CDC staff in the affected countries. Perhaps Miss Hickox was one of those.
I wonder when she separated from the CDC.
Mrs. AV
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