Cleaners accidentally breach COVID hotel via backdoor

Two cleaners found themselves in quarantine and at the centre of a security review after a “shocking” backdoor breach.

The breach occurred at the Pullman Hotel earlier this month. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Kelly Barnes

A Security review was launched after a breach at one of South Australia’s medi-hotels.

In a blunder authorities never publicly disclosed, two young male cleaners entered the city’s Pullman Hotel, Hindmarsh Square, on a Saturday night earlier this month despite it being a no-go “red zone”. The unidentified pair, who were meant to be cleaning an adjacent Bent Street apartment complex in the city’s East End, mistakenly entered through a backdoor on February 6.

The breach, which the Opposition described as “shocking” and “staggering”, forced the cleaners into mandatory quarantine as authorities scrambled to establish how they wrongly gained access to the medi-hotel.

The men later returned negative COVID-19 tests.

Returning expatriates were checking into the facility, the state’s first and main medi-hotel, which had its public entry blocked to prevent any possible COVID-19 spread.

It is unclear what formal sanction, if any, the cleaners faced or how they managed to enter the medi-hotel, which until last week housed all of the state’s infectious coronavirus patients.

Shadow Minister for Health & Wellbeing Chris Picton. Picture: AAP/Keryn Stevens

Authorities refused to say if any staff had been disciplined, where the men completed their quarantine or if they will be billed the $3000 cost of their 14 days in isolation.

In a separate breach at the Pullman on September 11 last year, a Victorian traveller in quarantine left their room at 9.30pm before entering the hotel foyer without being stopped.

Further details of that case have been redacted in an official report, along with the vast majority of 55 pages of documents including briefing papers for Police Commissioner Grant Stevens.

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton, said the “outrageous situation” put the community at risk and showed “just how lax CBD medi-hotel security can be and why we need permanent facilities”.

“It is beyond shocking that two people can just wander into our state’s major medi-hotel without being stopped,” he said.

Soldiers, police, security and health workers outside Pepper’s Hotel on Waymouth St. Picture: Emma Brasier.

“Three months after the Peppers Hotel outbreak, this staggering breach raises very serious questions about the government’s security measures.

A new quarantine facility for infectious coronavirus patients opened last week became operational at Tom’s Court Hotel, on King William Street. All COVID patients will now stay there.

An SA Health spokeswoman said the latest review led to “additional measures” at the Pullman.

“SA Health applies the most stringent infection control standards within our medi-hotels to keep South Australians safe from the spread of COVID-19,” she said.

A police spokesman did not respond to inquiries.