Demond Fernandez and Jenny Doren

WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas

DALLAS — The family of the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with the deadly Ebola virus is getting some assistance from civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

Jackson said the family of the patient — Thomas Eric Duncan — asked him to come to Dallas to help them get answers from the doctors treating the man. With Duncan's mother, Nowai Korkoyah, at his side, Jackson walked into the South Dallas Café on Tuesday for an early morning prayer session with the patient's worried family and a news conference.

"I'm anxious," Jackson said. "I'm concerned that they feel so alienated and so pushed away."

The civil rights activist said Duncan's family is having a tough time getting direct communication from doctors since the man was diagnosed with the Ebola virus last week.

After arriving in Dallas from Monrovia, Liberia, on Sept. 20, Duncan began feeling ill. He went to the emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Sept. 26, but was sent back to the apartment where he was staying northeast of downtown.

"He got sick, went to the hospital," Jackson said. "He didn't have insurance in Africa, and they turned him away. So they sent him back into the community with a contagious disease, and for that there must be some liability."

After his symptoms worsened, Duncan was transported to the same hospital by ambulance Sept. 28, critically ill. He was put in isolation in the hospital's intensive care unit. On Sept. 30, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Duncan had been stricken with the Ebola virus, the first patient to be diagnosed in the U.S.

Jackson explained that Duncan's family — who traveled to Texas from North Carolina — also has concerns about the patient's access to medicine. Doctors said the experimental drug, ZMapp, which was recently used to treat two American health care workers who contracted the Ebola virus in Liberia, is no longer available. Doctors have been treating Duncan, 42, with a different drug, brincidofovir, a broad-spectrum antiviral, since Saturday.

"They are saying no more doses (of ZMapp)," Jackson said. "That seems strange to only have only enough medicine for two patients in the whole country."

Jackson helped facilitate a meeting between Duncan's family and his medical team at Texas Health Presbyterian Tuesday afternoon. As the patient remains in critical condition, Duncan's sister, Mai Wureh, said they just want to make sure her brother is getting adequate treatment.

"We just want him to get well," Wureh said. "You know, we just want him to get well."

Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas issued an update Tuesday saying Duncan remains in critical condition. The hospital said he is stable and on a ventilator, and that he's receiving kidney dialysis.

The hospital reports that Duncan's liver functions are improving, after declining over the weekend. Doctors say Duncan's condition could continue to vary.