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President Obama – Weekly Address – Oct 25th, 2014 – Focused on the Fight Against Ebola – Video

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President Obama - Weekly Address - Oct 25th, 2014 - Focused on the Fight Against Ebola
Hi everybody, this week, we remained focused on our fight against Ebola. In Dallas, dozens of family, friends and others who had been in close contact with the first patient, Mr. Duncan, were...

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President Obama - Weekly Address - Oct 25th, 2014 - Focused on the Fight Against Ebola - Video

Health care centers to work one shift

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Acting Health Minister Adel Fakeih has announced that primary health care centers across the Kingdom will revert to the one-shift work system from Sunday through Thursday. The decision will come into effect from the month of Safar of the Islamic calendar, the ministry announced Sunday. The shift will last for eight hours from 7.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. with an hours break in the middle if work conditions permit. The shift can also be extended if needed for an extra half an hour which will duly be compensated. The working hours of the administrative staff will remain as they are from 7.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. five days a week from Sunday through Thursday. Currently, health care centers in the Kingdom follow the two-shift work system with a continuous nine-hour shift from 7.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. without a break or a split shift starting from 7.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and again from 4.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. Health care workers in the split shift system stand to benefit the most from the decision. They had to go home at midday and come back to the center again in the afternoon to work till the evening, an observer told Arab News.

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Health care centers to work one shift

EBOLA BLOG: Health care worker quarantined in Newark speaks out

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Up-to-date information on the Ebola situation in New York and worldwide after an emergency room doctor who, after treating Ebola patients in West Africa, tested positive for the virus. Dr. Craig Spencer is being treated at Bellevue Hospital. 5:30 a.m. -- The lawyer for Kaci Hickox says he will go to court if she is not released Monday from quarantine in New Jersey

Lisa Colagrossi reports from Newark:

"New Jersey is not changing its quarantine protocol. The protocol is clear that a New Jersey resident with no symptoms, but who has come into contact with someone with Ebola, such as a health care provider, would be subject to a mandatory quarantine order and quarantined at home. Non-residents would be transported to their homes if feasible and, if not, quarantined in New Jersey." - Governor Chris Christie

9:30 p.m. -- Quarantined NJ nurse reaches out to attorney to fight for her release.

Kaci Hickox reached out to Attorney Norman Seigel to fight for her release. She is not allowed to leave and is under police watch. She calls her quarantine an "over reach" by politicians, who should be relying on the medical experts to determine who is really sick. She is especially upset with Governor Chris Christie for her treatment.

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8:54 p.m. -- Cuomo details New York's mandatory quarantine policy

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday night that the health care workers who have had contact with Ebola patients will be quarantined at home and receive twice-daily monitoring from medical professionals if they have no symptoms. The state will also pay for any lost compensation, if they are not paid by a volunteer organization.

Under the outlined New York guidelines, medical professionals who have had contact with Ebola patients will be quarantined at home and receive twice-daily monitoring if they have no symptoms. Family members will be allowed to stay, and friends may visit with the approval of health officials. The state will also pay for any lost compensation, if they are not paid by a volunteer organization.

8:15 p.m. -- Mayor Bill de Blasio, Governor Cuomo to give latest updates on Ebola

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EBOLA BLOG: Health care worker quarantined in Newark speaks out

Health care worker who was isolated in Newark criticizes Ebola quarantine process

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Governor Christie said Saturday his heart goes out to a nurse who complained about being quarantined in Newark after returning from West Africa, but his top priority is to protect the public health and safety of the people of New Jersey.

The nurse, Kaci Hickox, landed at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and was taken to University Hospital in Newark with a temperature of 101. Hickox said officials barked questions at me as if I was a criminal and appeared to be disorganized.

Related: Christie stands by mandatory quarantine for health care workers treating Ebola

Hickox, who lives in Maine and worked for Doctors Without Borders, tested negative for the Ebola virus after she arrived at the hospital on Friday evening.

Her complaints were aired inan essay published Saturday by the Dallas Morning News. 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. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine, she wrote.

Asked about the matter, Christie, who was campaigning for Republican candidates in Iowa, said, Im sorry if in any way she was inconvenienced. But the inconvenience that could occur from having folks who are symptomatic and ill out and amongst the public is a much, much greater concern of mine.

Hickox had landed at Newark on the same day that Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced they were ratcheting up Ebola screening at Newark Liberty and Kennedy international airports. Instead of relying on people traveling from West Africa to monitor their own health on return, the governors said that public health workers in both states will do the monitoring, which will include house calls and more detailed interviews. Quarantines will be mandatory for people who had contact with Ebola patients. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced a similar quarantine on Saturday.

New Jersey residents may be quarantined in their homes, and out-of-state residents, such as Hickox, will be kept in government-owned facilities for 21 days under the new rules put in place by Christie.

Related:Quarantined health care worker who landed in Newark tests negative for Ebola

Related:NJ, NY announce new Ebola quarantine policy

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Health care worker who was isolated in Newark criticizes Ebola quarantine process

N.Y. governor changes Ebola quarantine policy

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Health care workers returning to New York who've had contact with Ebola patients but don't show symptoms can serve a mandatory 21-day quarantine in their homes, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday night.

This is a change in the recently instituted state policy on health workers who return to the United States from the Ebola zone.

Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had jointly announced a mandatory quarantine policy on Friday. Over the weekend, the Obama administration lobbied the governors to change it.

The temperatures of a asymptomatic health care workers will be checked twice daily. Returning health care workers who show symptoms of the Ebola virus will be transported to hospitals for mandatory quarantine, according to a fact sheet on the new guidelines.

People who return from the Ebola zones but didn't have contact with Ebola patients will be handled on a case-by-case basis, the fact sheet said.

The fact sheet said the state would provide financial assistance to the quarantined health workers if their employers do not.

In New Jersey, Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts said the Garden State's policy also allows at-home quarantines.

"New Jersey is not changing its quarantine protocol. The protocol is clear that a New Jersey resident with no symptoms, but who has come into contact with someone with Ebola, such as a health care provider, would be subject to a mandatory quarantine order and quarantined at home," Roberts said. "Nonresidents would be transported to their homes if feasible and, if not, quarantined in New Jersey."

The Obama administration has been urging Cuomo and Christie to reverse their recently enacted policies that require a 21-day quarantine for all health workers who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, The New York Times reported Sunday.

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N.Y. governor changes Ebola quarantine policy

Health Care Worker Tests Negative For Ebola In NJ, Stays In Quarantine

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A nurse has been quarantined at University Hospital in Newark for the possibility of Ebola has tested negative in a preliminary test, authorities said early this morning. Patti Sapone/NJ Advance Media /Landov hide caption

A nurse has been quarantined at University Hospital in Newark for the possibility of Ebola has tested negative in a preliminary test, authorities said early this morning.

A woman who was put in isolation at Newark Liberty International Airport remains under quarantine, despite a preliminary test that found she did not have the deadly Ebola virus.

The health care worker was isolated Friday as she returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. She had no symptoms of the disease, but after she developed a fever, she was taken to a nearby hospital.

"The patient continues to be quarantined and remains in isolation and under observation at University Hospital in Newark," New Jersey's health department said early Saturday, in a statement announcing preliminary test results.

The health care worker returned to the U.S. on the same day that guidelines for handling possible exposure to Ebola were being tightened. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said that their states will institute a mandatory 21-day quarantine for anyone traveling from West African nations who has also had contact with an Ebola patient. (Update at 4 p.m. ET: Illinois is installing the same quarantine policy; Chicago's O'Hare airport is one of five that have been screening passengers from West Africa.)

"It's too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system of compliance," Cuomo said of the new requirement.

The shift seems to have caught the health care worker by surprise. In a series of tweets Friday afternoon, Dr. Seema Yasmin of the Dallas Morning News said the woman is Kaci Hickox, a nurse who was "being held against her will" at the airport where she had been returning from a month treating patients in West Africa.

Yasmin said Hickox is a friend who works with Doctors Without Borders. Relaying information from her, Yasmin said she was "distraught" and wasn't being given information about why she was not allowed to leave.

Update at 3:50 p.m. ET: Quarantined Nurse Writes About Her Experience

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Health Care Worker Tests Negative For Ebola In NJ, Stays In Quarantine

Should health care workers who treat Ebola in Africa be quarantined?

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(CNN) When doctors risk their lives and sacrifice their livelihoods to go to West Africa and provide desperately needed treatment to those suffering from Ebola, what should be their reward upon coming home?

Three weeks off, some say whether they like it or not.

The governors of New York and New Jersey instituted just such a policy Friday, announcing that airport screening will be stepped up in their states and that any arriving passengers whod recently been in the West African nations hit hardest by Ebola could be hospitalized or quarantined for up to 21 days sick or not.

Measures such as these would affect people who lived in or traveled to countries such as Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where all but a handful of the more than 10,000 documented Ebola cases and almost 5,000 deaths have occurred. And it would also impact those who brought their medical expertise to West Africa, doing what they could to prevent more people from dying or spreading the disease.

So theres a tradeoff: Should the focus of American policy be to do everything to prevent anyone from the most ravaged regions from entering the United States, even if it discourages health care workers from going there?

On Saturday, the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention said that it sets the baseline recommended standards, but state and local officials have the prerogative to set tighter policies.

When it comes to the federal standards set by the CDC, we will consider any measures that we believe have the potential to make the American people safer, the CDC said in a statement.

Some U.S. lawmakers, such as Rep. Andy Harris, favor a strict three-week quarantine. (That time duration is significant because it takes anywhere from two to 21 days from the time a person is exposed to Ebola to when he or she shows symptoms of it; if more time than that passes without symptoms, a person is considered Ebola-free.)

In return from being allowed to come back into the country from a place where a deadly disease is endemic, youd have to enter a quarantine facility and be supervised for 21 days, the Maryland Republican told CNN.

Some, though, think such a policy would be counterproductive. It might prevent some cases of Ebola in the United States over the short term, they say, but over the long run it could backfire if highly trained American doctors have even more incentive not to head to Africa to help corral the disease.

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Should health care workers who treat Ebola in Africa be quarantined?

Health care worker quarantined in New Jersey criticizes treatment

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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- The health care worker now quarantined at a New Jersey hospital because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa is sharply criticizing the way she's being treated.

Kaci Hickox says in a first-person account in the Dallas Morning News she was stopped and questioned over several hours arriving Friday at Newark Liberty International. She says no one would explain what was going on or what would happen to her.

Hickox is a nurse who had been working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. Officials say she was taken to a hospital after developing a fever; Hickox says she was merely flushed because she was upset.

She tested negative for Ebola in a preliminary evaluation. Hospital officials won't say if she will remain quarantined in the hospital for the entire 21 days.

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Health care worker quarantined in New Jersey criticizes treatment


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