Posted on 10/23/2015 8:31:54 AM PDT by Conscience of a Conservative
A nurse held for three days in quarantine at a Newark hospital last year after aiding Ebola patients in West Africa has filed suit against Governor Christie and members of his administration, saying they violated her constitutional rights by holding her against her will without due process.
The nurse, Kaci Hickox, had spent a month in Sierra Leone treating Ebola patients and training other health workers for Doctors Without Borders. When she returned home on Oct. 24 and landed at Newark Liberty International Airport, she became the first health worker ensnared in the Christie administration’s new policy to impose a 21-day mandatory quarantine on travelers arriving from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea who had come in contact with Ebola patients.
“We are filing this claim to hold those who made this decision accountable and also to highlight and fight against the lack of due process in the quarantine policy in New Jersey,” Hickox said Thursday via skype from her home in Oregon.
“It was clear to me that politicians and in particular Governor Christie were really reacting out of fear,” she said. “When you choose to detain someone out of fear that’s discrimination.”
The incident occurred last fall amid growing national worries about Ebola reaching the United States from West Africa, where an outbreak has killed more than 11,300 people and infected more than 28,500, according to the World Health Organization. Before Hickox’s return to the United States, a Liberian national who was visiting Texas died of Ebola at a Dallas hospital and Craig Spencer, a Manhattan doctor who had worked with Ebola patients in Guinea, set off a health scare in New York City after he rode the subway and visited a bowling alley while sick from the disease, though he didn’t yet know he had the virus. He has since recovered.
Related: N.J. releases details on mandatory Ebola screening and quarantine
Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled Ebola quarantine policies last October amid public concern that health workers who had been treating Ebola patients could not be trusted to self-quarantine when they returned to the United States. At one point, New Jersey had about 100 people in active monitoring, different than quarantine because they must contact local health officials daily and must take their temperatures and watch for symptoms.
Related: Ebola quarantine process criticized by health care worker isolated in Newark
When questioned about the quarantine policy last year, Christie defended it. “Your first and most important job is to protect the health and safety of the people who live within your borders, and the fact is that we’re doing exactly the right thing,” he had said. A poll taken a few weeks after the quarantine policy was implemented, 67 percent of New Jersey residents approved of the decision to quarantine Hickox, and just 19 percent disagreed.
Hickox, 34, is seeking $250,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer representing Hickox, said that amounts to $2,000 for each hour of her 80-hour detention plus extra for punitive damages.
The 35-page complaint, filed in the United States District Court of New Jersey, also names as defendants Mary O’Dowd, the former state health commissioner, as well as Christopher Rinn and Gary Ludwig, two other employees of the state health department.
Siegel said Hickox is suing Christie and others as individuals, which could mean the governor would have to pay for his own private lawyer as well as pay any judgment himself if the court sided with Hickox. “It sends a message to other elected officials that they will be held personally responsible for actions like this,” Siegel said.
Christie spokesman Brian Murray said Thursday the governor would not comment on the suit because it is a pending legal matter.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with body fluids or through exposure to objects contaminated with the virus, such as needles. Symptoms, including fever, headache and muscle aches, commonly appear within eight to 10 days of exposure, but the maximum incubation period is 21 days.
In her complaint, Hickox argues that she followed all Doctors Without Borders infection control policies while in Sierra Leone, such as wearing protective equipment when in contact with patients and keeping a three-foot distance from people suspected of having Ebola.
After landing in Newark and telling immigration officials she had been treating Ebola patients, Hickox was held apart in a quarantine center at the airport. “No one told her what was going on or what was going to happen to her,” the complaint states. “There seemed to be no coordination among the persons who interviewed her.”
Among those who questioned her was a man wearing a weapon belt “who spoke to Hickox aggressively as if she were a criminal,” according to the complaint.
When someone tested her with a non-contact thermometer, it registered a temperature, but an oral thermometer later used at University Hospital in Newark showed no fever.
Hickox was taken from the airport to the hospital in an ambulance escorted by eight police cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring, and she was held in an isolation tent in an unfinished section of the hospital facility with inadequate heating, the complaint states. She had to ask for several blankets to keep warm, and had no access to the outside world other than her cell phone, which had weak reception, making it hard for her to send or receive email for personal or legal reasons, according to the complaint. She had access to a portable toilet but not a shower.
“I felt completely alone and vulnerable,” Hickox said. “It was really hard. I had a lot of tough moments.”
While being held, she showed no symptoms of Ebola, and threatened legal action with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. At the time, Christie replied in response, “I’ve been sued lots of times before. Get in line. I’m happy to take it on.”
He also said he didn’t think the state’s quarantine policy would discourage health care workers from going to West Africa. “I think folks should understand part of the sacrifice is going over there and the remainder of the sacrifice is when you come home,” he said then.
Hickox was later released and went home to Maine, where she was kept under quarantine for several days until a Maine judge ruled she didn’t have to be quarantined.
Hickox’s experience became a cause celebre among other health care workers, and her case sparked national debate about how to handle people exposed to Ebola. Christie and President Obama also clashed publicly over the state’s quarantine policy.
Hickox said she did not sue University Hospital or the health care providers because they weren’t the ones who enforced the quarantine. She called the nurses, doctors and staff “wonderful, compassionate and kind.”
Before her stint in Sierra Leone, Hickox had also worked as a medical team leader, nurse manager and primary health care manager for Doctors Without Borders in Uganda, Nigeria, Sudan and Myanmar. Hickox married in the past year and moved to Oregon where she is “a clinical nurse educator for a large health care provider.” She has not been out of the country since Sierra Leone. But she said she hopes to do more humanitarian work overseas and hopes New Jersey’s quarantine policy is changed by then were she to land back in Newark.
Email: fallon@northjersey.com and oneillj@northjersey.com
I’m assuming that Kaci, if she had landed in New York instead of Jersey would be suing NY and Andrew Cuomo since he and Christie had a joint policy for their states regarding Ebola? (I don’t think for a minute she’d be suing Cuomo)
When all the hubbub was going on around her last year, and she was basically giving all Mainers the finger while potentially putting them at risk, my comment was that "She'd better be careful. Lots of large unoccupied woodlots and deep dark ponds in Maine." Frankly, she should be glad that she - and her idiot boyfriend - are still breathing after the nonsense that she pulled.
I've never been to Jersey - just through it - but I'd imagine that there's a fair number of places to disappear in it, too.
yes, I agree with that, but in the big cities in which there was the spread in Nigeria and Western Africa, the conditions which exist now (unsanitary in all but the wealthy few), the death toll would have been astronomical due to the conditions in which the masses live. There has to be another factor in this disease. If this ever spread to India, with the lack of sanitary conditions in most of the cities, this would be a disaster. (unless there is another factor, genetic, that hasn’t been ‘discovered’ yet).
She went to Jersey, Oregon, and IIRC, she and her BF in Maine have broken up.
Ummm, she does not have (and never had) ebola. So, no, she’s not “out there spreading” anything.
I remember when “aids” first came on the scene. Govt. said it was “high risk to gay men”. The “gay community” in SF had a large faction that did NOT want to censor the RISKY behavior which allowed AIDS to explode and IIRC the Feds are now wanting to lift restrictions on blood donation from a population with a large AIDS risk/infection?
OK, ya got me there.
she’s not “out there spreading” anything.
She's a liberal, take your pick, she's probably had it, and don't stand too close, those things can jump you know.
You can say that now.
Hindsight 20/20 and all that.
Fact remains, Princess felt that rules were for everyone ELSE.
She failed to abide by the rules, and thus quarantine was forced.
Her room mate in the hot zone ended up with ebola.
And they didn’t know how.
So at the time, quarantine was the right thing to do.
And I note you failed to respond to:
http://throb.gizmodo.com/turns-out-the-ebola-virus-can-be-sexually-transmitted-1737730480
The fact that ebola can be sexually transmitted is irrelevant here, because Hickox never had ebola.
Perhaps she could ask Barack why tens of thousands of people (kids to the Feds) stream over the border un-screened for disease? (illegal entry)
At the time of the quarantine, that was unknown and NOT PROVEN.
She failed to abide by the self quarantine, and acted as if the rules did not apply to her.
And at that point, nobody knew if she did or didn't.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-1012-ebola-fever-20141012-story.html
Not everyone exhibits fever under ebola infection.
You have the timeline backwards. You're right that she acted irresponsibly once she was in Maine, under self-quarantine. The mandatory quarantine came BEFORE the self-quarantine. She was placed in mandatory quarantine (in the tent) before she ever did ANYTHING. And that is the quarantine she is suing Christie over.
UH, no.
Her roomie had ebola.
And she was repeatedly exposed.
And she did indeed fail to abide by the self quarantine, which brought about the forced quarantine.
Same with that idiot DOCTOR who decided to go and mingle in a heavily populated area.
AND sexual transmission is NOT irrelevant.
The lady in that article was given ebola via sex five months after the survivor was “cleared”.
Your arguments in defense of Princess are admirable, IF you are looking to play host to the next round of people exposed to ebola in your own home.
No. You're wrong. The forced quarantine happened immediately upon her arrival at the airport in New Jersey. The self-quarantine happened AFTER that, when New Jersey agreed to let her go home to Maine. She did fail to abide by the self-quarantine, but Christie's forced quarantine happened FIRST.
Nice to see how, with hindsight, you find fault with it.
Now, if she did have and spread Ebola, what would you be saying now?
It’s not hindsight. At the time, all of the medical and infectious disease control experts were saying the same thing (and I was agreeing with them then, too) - that ebola is not transmittable in the absence of symptoms, so there is no reason to impose a blanket quarantine like Christie (and Cuomo) tried to do.
And you continue, then, to ignore everything linked that shows there was cause for concern dye to them NOT knowing everything there is about Ebola.
How it can be spread sexually, how it doesn’t present fever in some, etc.
And yes, it is hindsight.
So, would you have been defending her still if she did indeed have and spread Ebola?
Answer the question.
Even where there is no fever, there are other symptoms. Ebola cannot be spread prior to the onset of those symptoms. You've shown nothing to disprove that.
The fact that it can be spread sexually is irrelevant to the quarantine question. Quarantines exist to protect the public from highly contagious diseases. Assuming someone is not out there having sex with everyone in sight, there is no reason to quarantine someone because they have a disease (or have been exposed to a disease) that can be spread sexually.
And no, it's not hindsight. I was saying the same thing AT THE TIME. My position is not a hindsight position, it's the position I've taken throughout. Just because the facts have borne my position out, doesn't make it a hindsight position.
So, would you have been defending her still if she did indeed have and spread Ebola? Answer the question.
That's a complete non-sequitor. She did not have it and, more importantly, she did not exhibit any symptoms of it (I say more importantly because, again, it can be spread only when symptoms appear).
So, the question you keep demanding me to answer is a completely meaningless hypothetical. But, fine - if she had developed symptoms and had continued to go into public (the only way she would have spread the disease), then of course I would not defend her. But, that didn't happen. So, again, irrelevant.
“. Ebola cannot be spread prior to the onset of those symptoms. “
They don’t know that for 100% certain.
And you’ve shown nothing to prove it is 100% so.
“The fact that it can be spread sexually is irrelevant to the quarantine question.”
No, it isn’t.
It can be spread FIVE MONTHS after being “cleared”.
Or 155 days, or beyond the 90 days recommended by the CDC.
“And no, it’s not hindsight. “
Yes, it is.
Keep trying to claim otherwise.
“That’s a complete non-sequitor.”
You have NO idea what a non-sequitor is.
IF she had indeed had ebola and indeed spread it, what would you be saying now?
I asked you THAT exact wording in post 136 which you failed to answer.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/3352042/posts?page=136#136
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