SA Health receiving 200 border exemption requests a day, but quarantine system can’t cope with it

Two hundred people every day are seeking an exemption to enter SA – but the state’s quarantine system can’t cope with anywhere near that many.

South Australia’s quarantine system is being overwhelmed as 200 people a day seek exemptions to return to the state.

A state parliamentary committee on Thursday was told SA Health was being swamped by 200 applications for exemptions a day and the state did not have the capacity within its quarantine system to accommodate them all.

SA Health deputy chief executive Don Frater said the amount of people able to be taken in by medi-hotels was “incredibly limited”.

“We have up to 200 people (per fortnight) we can put into home quarantine at level five, where we have wraparound services to make sure that they are OK … and it’s roughly 200 people per 16 days in medi hotels,” he said.

“So we don’t have huge volumes and ability to deal with the large numbers of people who wish to come back to South Australia and that’s part of the problem.”

Mr Frater said SA Health was reading “some fairly emotional letters” from those wishing to return or relocate to the state.

Police stand guard outside the Pullman medi-hotel in Adelaide during a lockdown. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Mariuz

“That is incredibly difficult, because we’re needing to balance the risk to the society, which is relatively open, versus the desire of people to either come back to the state or to come to the state in the first place,” he said.

People who apply for an exemption for compassionate reasons were normally dealt with within 24 hours, Mr Frater told the hearing.

SA Health was unable to confirm how many applications were currently outstanding.

Mr Frater said those lodging applications included returning South Australians, people who were seeking to relocate, those who were starting a new job in SA, and some who “can’t cope with what’s happening in New South Wales and Victoria” and wanted to move here.

“In terms of doing (the assessments), we look at where they’re from, what’s their history of telling us what they’re doing and where they’re coming from and … what’s their history in terms of do we think they’re likely to be compliant when they come back,” Mr Frater said.

Greens MLC Tammy Franks asked Mr Frater what SA Health was doing to support South Australians stranded interstate with no support and dwindling funds.

Mr Frater said SA Health were discussing this issue with the Treasury Department.

“That’s something we were discussing earlier this week – We need to work our way through that fairly quickly,” he said.

“I think we’ll have a further discussion in the next couple of days.”

Treasurer Rob Lucas said he hadn’t been presented with any funding proposal but his priority at this point was putting money towards vaccinations and “keeping people safe in South Australia”.