NY Post: Scared Hospital Workers Take an Ebola 'Sick-Out'

An "extraordinary number" of frightened Bellevue Hospital workers have taken a "sick-out," including one woman who even tried faking a stroke to get out of being exposed to Ebola, after Dr. Craig Spencer was quarantined there with the virus, according to The New York Post

Spencer, 33, his fiancée Morgan Dixon, 33, and two friends who were in close contact with the physician also have been quarantined at Bellevue, the Daily Mail reported.

"The nurses on the floor are miserable with a 'why me?' attitude, scared to death and overworked because all their co-workers called out sick," an unidentified source told the Post.

"One nurse even went as far as to pretend she was having a stroke to get out of working there, but once they cleared her in the ER (emergency room), they sent her back."

Hospital spokeswoman Ana Marengo denied to the Post that the hospital was short-staffed.

Spencer, a volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, had been treating Ebola victims in Guinea. He returned to JFK Airport in New York just days ahead of the imposition of a 21-day mandatory quarantine for health workers returning from West Africa.

The quarantine was ordered by New York and New Jersey as the federal government has refused to issue a nationwide mandatory quarantine order or block travel from West Africa to the U.S.

Upon his return, Spencer reportedly monitored himself, but spent six days in New York visiting friends, riding subways and bowling before his temperature spiked to 100.3 degrees and he was quarantined.

Spencer's experience has been cited by legislators who support the idea of a ban on travel from West Africa to the U.S. or a nationwide mandatory quarantine program.

"The American public is very concerned that individuals who have fallen ill with Ebola virus have had significant public contact while they were falling ill," Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, told Bloomberg News.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told Fox News, "It's too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system of compliance."

Health care workers who did show up for work were "terrified" to enter the isolation chamber where Spencer is being quarantined, the Post said.

Spencer is being kept in a pressurized room, watching television and, as an Ebola expert, advising hospital workers how to treat him by telephone, the Daily Mail reported.

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