Kaci Hickox, a nurse who was being quarantined against her will in New Jersey after returning home from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, is being discharged from the hospital after she hired a lawyer and criticized Gov. Chris Christie's policy.
The New Jersey Health Department issued a statement Monday morning announcing that the 33-year-old nurse will be released.
"Since testing negative for Ebola on early Saturday morning, the patient being monitored in isolation at University Hospital in Newark has thankfully been symptom-free for the last 24 hours," the statement read. "As a result, and after being evaluated in coordination with the CDC and the treating clinicians at University Hospital, the patient is being discharged."
The health department said the Hickox will be taken by private carrier — not public transportation — to Maine.
"She will remain subject to New Jersey's mandatory quarantine order while in New Jersey," state health officials said. "Health officials in Maine have been notified of her arrangements and will make a determination under their own laws on her treatment when she arrives."
Hickox hired civil rights attorney Norman Siegel to fight her mandatory quarantine in court, arguing that her
"basic human rights are being violated," according to ABC News.
"Medically speaking there's no reason for the state of New Jersey to keep her quarantined," Siegel told reporters Sunday. "She very simply wants to be released. We will advocate for the state of New Jersey and the governor to release her as soon as possible."
Hickox, an epidemiologist who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and tested negative twice for the disease, blasted Christie's policy of mandatory quarantines for healthcare workers as a "knee-jerk reaction by politicians."
Christie defended his actions on Fox News Sunday, telling host Chris Wallace he did not have faith in voluntary quarantines.
"This is government's job," Christie said. "If anything else, the government job is to protect safety and health of our citizens. And so, we've taken this action and I absolutely have no second thoughts about it . . . I think this is a policy that will become a national policy sooner rather than later."