http://nypost.com/2014/10/24/another-doctors-without-borders-physician-who-treated-ebola-came-through-jfk/Another doctor who treated Ebola came through JFK
By Philip Messing and Lorena Mongelli
October 24, 2014 | 4:02pm
A physician who treated dying Ebola patients in Liberia flew in to JFK on Thursday night — and stayed at an airport hotel, a source told The Post.
Colin Bucks, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford University’s medical school, arrived on a Royal Moroccan Air flight and is currently asymptomatic, sources said.
He went to the Hilton Garden Inn in Jamaica, Queens, near the airport. Centers for Disease Control workers “also stay there,” said a source.
On Friday, he was cleared to travel home to Northern California, where he will “be monitored by CDC there,” according to the source.
“He is asymptomatic and he’s being allowed to leave the hotel and fly home,” a source added.
Sources said that Bucks, works with International Medical Corps, was told to self-quarantine at the hotel, but he told The Post he merely missed a connecting flight. He said he was screened at the airport in Africa and again upon arrival at Kennedy airport.
“If there had been a flight yesterday, I would’ve not spent the night here,” he said in a telephone interview.
His first flight was delayed, so he missed his connecting flight and had to stay at a hotel overnight, he said.
Bucks risked his health daily working with Ebola-stricken patients in Liberia.
“I think he’s positive,” Bucks told The New York Times earlier this month, describing a patient in his 70s who was covered with a blanket soaked in blood. “I think this will be an end-of-life event.”
He also described how risky it is to administer blood tests to potentially infected patients. Sometimes disinfectants would erase patient’s identification numbers, he said.
“It would be inexcusable for us to have to take blood again and get a needle stick,” Bucks told the newspaper.
In a video, Bucks also modeled the protective gear health workers wear in West Africa, showing viewers the many steps it takes to properly suit up for the dangerous job.
So far, Craig Spencer, the first New Yorker with Ebola, is the only Doctors Without Borders staffer to develop the disease after returning home from West Africa.
All physicians working with the organization are required to monitor their temperature twice a day upon returning from overseas.
A CDC spokesperson told Reuters that the Obama administration is considering a measure that would require all health workers returning from West Africa to be quarantined.
