President Obama greeted the Dallas nurse who contracted and then recovered from Ebola with a bear hug at the beginning of their meeting Friday in the Oval Office.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president embraced the nurse, Nina Pham, to thank her for the selfless care of an Ebola-stricken patient in Texas that led her to contract the virus herself.
“He was not at all concerned about any risk she would pose to him by showing his gratitude by hugging her,” he said.
Along with Obama and Nina Pham, others who attended the White House meeting included: Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell; Pham’s mother Diana Pham and sister Catherine Pham; Dr. Anthony Fauci, her primary doctor, as well as Dr. Richard Davey Jr. and Dr. Cliff Lane, all from the National Institutes of Health.
The president’s decision to meet with a cured Ebola patient just hours after doctors declared her cured was a symbolic gesture demonstrating to the American public and the world how confident he is in the government medical team’s ability to treat those who test positive for the virus.
The White House only allowed still photographers, not reporters, into the Oval Office to capture Pham’s meeting with Obama. Earnest would not say why that decision was made, noting only that neither Obama nor Pham planned to make comments afterward.
Pham’s high-profile White House visit comes one day after a doctor who had treated Ebola patients in Guinea was diagnosed with the virus. It took place just hours after a House hearing where several GOP lawmakers faulted the government’s response to Ebola and the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog said the Department of Health and Human Services had “mismanaged” money and effort to address any Ebola outbreak.
Earnest said Pham’s visit should be a “pretty good reminder that [the United States] does have the best medical infrastructure in the world.
“The track record of treating patients in this country is very strong, especially those who are quickly diagnosed” and treated, he said.
After the outbreak of Ebola in Africa, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started planning for cases to show up in the country, and that early reaction was very useful over the last 24 hours when Dr. Craig Spencer went to Bellevue hospital in New York after he experienced a low-grade fever.
New York City officials Friday said Spencer is in stable condition in the hospital’s isolation unit. His fiancée and two friends are under quarantine but have not shown any signs of the virus.
Obama previously had designated five airports to receive travellers coming from Western Africa to provide additional screening for them. Bellevue Hospital, where doctors are treating Spencer, was one hospital where travellers were sent after arriving by airplane, he said.
In addition, Earnest said, the CDC sent a rapid-response medical team to Manhattan last night to ensure the hospital was following strengthened health protocols after admitting and diagnosing Spencer.
Earlier Friday, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Pham was 100-percent free of Ebola and “has no virus in her,” citing multiple tests confirming her cure.
“I do not know how I can ever thank everyone enough for their prayers and the expressions of concern, hope and love,” she told reporters outside the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md., where she was treated, after she walked out to heavy applause.
Pham said she felt “fortunate and blessed” and credited her recovery to her excellent medical team and God. She said she was looking forward to going home to her dog, Bentley, a King Charles Spaniel that was quarantined after Pham tested positive. The dog tested negative for the virus.
