Nurse Kaci Hickox is out of Camp Christie and driving home to Maine.
The 33-year-old nurse who got national attention after she publicly complained about being stuck in New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s Ebola detention center for three days was en route home to Fort Kent, Me. in a convoy of black SUVs in a trip that will take 10 hours.
“We are very pleased that the state of New Jersey has decided to release Casey Hickox,” her lawyer, Norman Siegel, said Monday. “Medically and legally the state of New Jersey had no justification to confine Casey.”
Siegel said they haven’t ruled out suing Christie for violating her civil rights or challenging “the constitutionality of the mandatory quarantine policy” the Jersey governor and his New York counterpart, Gov. Cuomo put into place.
“The goal is to allow Casey to amplify her voice on this issue,” Siegel said.
Hickox, who had been fighting Ebola with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, will be under home quarantine in Maine until the 21 days since her last contact with an Ebola runs out. She lives with her boyfriend Theodore Wilbur.
"We fully expect individuals to voluntarily comply with an in-home quarantine," Maine’s health department laid out in its protocols for healthcare workers returning to the state from West Africa. "The Maine CDC will coordinate care services such as goods and medicine if needed."
Christie, who was stumping for Republican Gov. Rick Scott in Florida, made no apologies for detaining Hickox and insisted he didn’t “reverse” his decision to hold her.
“She hadn’t had any symptoms for 24 hours and she tested negative for Ebola,” he said. “So there was no reason to keep her. The reason she was put into the hospital in the first place was because she was running a high fever and was symptomatic.”
Hickox was snared Friday after Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed a mandatory 21-day quarantine requirement for people returning to their states after having direct contact with Ebola patients in West Africa.
State officials insisted Hickox was feverish when she deplaned and needed to be monitored for the deadly disease.
But Hickox tested negative for the virus Saturday morning, officials said. And Sunday, Hickox blasted Christie’s policy and his claim she was “obviously ill” when she deplaned Friday at Newark Liberty Airport.
Hickox accused Christie of putting politics ahead of sound medicine.
“I feel like my basic human rights have been violated,” she told the Daily News on Sunday.
The White House chimed in with "concerns" about the plan's "unintended consequences" on the fight against the epidemic.
Cuomo, a Democrat running for reelection, backed Christie, a Republican, and called the quarantines “entirely reasonable.”
“You could say I am being overcautious,” Cuomo said. “I would rather be, in this situation, a little overcautious. And I think all New Yorkers feel the same.”
But Mayor de Blasio also questioned the policy and on Monday called the treatment of Hickox "disrespectful."
Outside Bellevue Hospital, where Dr. Craig Spencer — New York’s first confirmed case of Ebola — is being treated, AIDS activists rallied to get Cuomo to rescind the mandatory home quarantine for people returning from West Africa.
Charles King, the president and CEO of Housing Works, a nonprofit focused on the AIDS crisis, said the governor’s office responded favorably to the suggestion of easing the protocol.
“We support many of the measures that have been put in place by public health officials here in New York State and New York City but do feel that this detention of people under quarantine and sends the wrong message," he said.
With Jennifer Fermino, Caitlin Nolan and Edgar Sandoval
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1oRG16q
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