‘Shocked and appalled’
‘Ebola nurse’ says Canada’s West Africa travel restrictions are ‘discriminatory’
She took on American politicians. Now a nurse who castigated what she considered ignorant and electoralist Ebola policies in her own country has a few words for the government of Canada.
Kaci Hickox had television crews parked outside her house last month as she defied quarantine orders, issued by certain state governors in the heat of U.S. election campaigns.
The woman who became known in news headlines as “the Ebola nurse” is now free to move around, after clearing the 21-day virus-free period. She was interviewed last week as she packed a trailer for her move across the state of Maine, to Freeport.
And, yes, she’d heard about Canada’s clampdown on travel from parts of West Africa. The federal government has imposed far more aggressive rules than most countries, banning visas from Ebola-affected Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
“I had this terrible gut reaction,” Hickox said in an interview. “Discriminating against these entire countries, and groups of people that really need our help more than ever and need our support and our compassion more than ever, is quite shameful, actually.”
Hickox’s return from Sierra Leone made her a cause celebre to some Americans, and a bête noire to others. The debate closely followed political lines, as her case landed in the middle of midterm elections.
Big majorities have told pollsters that they want severe travel restrictions, similar to the measures imposed in Canada. But the U.S. government has resisted, saying those measures would be more harmful than helpful.
Some state governors have taken measures into their own hands. In New Jersey, that’s what got Hickox quarantined in a tent after she landed at the airport, thus setting off a public dispute between her and the Republican governors in two states — that state’s Chris Christie, and then Maine’s after she was sent home to complete her quarantine there.
Hickox was between jobs after completing a fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control. She decided to volunteer for a month in Sierra Leone, with Doctors Without Borders.
She counted 39 Ebola patients who walked out of her clinic, healed, during her time there. As for those who didn’t make it out, Hickox says she didn’t keep a list because it was too painful. The last one was a 10-year-old girl who suffered seizures, then died alone.
“It’s just incredibly disappointing to be doing the work you love — and then to come back and because politicians want to gain some votes, they make this into a re-election campaign (issue) instead of what it should be: which is a real publichealth debate,” she said.
“We should be listening to public-health leaders. This should not be a political game. There was no reason for me to be put in a tent in New Jersey.”