A US nurse, whose enforced quarantine in New Jersey sparked a furious backlash after she returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, was discharged today, officials said.
Kaci Hickox complained bitterly about being placed under mandatory quarantine Friday, claiming she was made to feel like a criminal after being isolated in a tent without a shower or flush toilet.
Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that the nurse was being released, a day after New York reversed strict new quarantine orders under pressure from the Obama administration.
A spokeswoman for University Hospital in Newark, where Hickox was held in a tent outside the main building and made to wear paper scrubs, confirmed that she left shortly after 1:00 pm.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest today criticised her confinement and praised Hickox for her bravery in travelling to West Africa in a bid to treat patients suffering from the virus.
"Her service and commitment to this cause is something that should be honored and respected, and I don't think we do that by making her live in a tent for two or three days," he said today.
Christie's office and New Jersey's department of health said the patient remained symptom free after testing negative for Ebola, and would be driven to her home state of Maine by private carrier -- not via public transport or commercial jet.
Hickox, who had been helping treat patients in Sierra Leone before flying home via Newark International Airport, was kept in a tent equipped with a bed, non-flush chemical toilet and no shower.
"I feel like my basic human rights have been violated," she told CNN on Saturday, insisting she was not contagious because she has shown no symptoms and tested negative for the disease.
