Liberal MP Nicolle Flint: SA Health must apologise for its handling of the Covid crisis

SA Health needs to apologise for its handling of the Covid crisis – the Draconian transfer of people to medi-hotels and testing queues chaos, writes Liberal MP Nicolle Flint.

On Thursday, the Prime Minister apologised for the slower than expected rollout of Covid vaccines.

Perhaps the state government – or the Department of Health – might do the same over the Covid testing line ups, and the terrible decision to force innocent people from their homes and into medi-hotels.

As we know, South Australia has been the envy of the nation over the past 16 months for our handling of the Covid crisis, thanks mainly to the South Aussies who have always done the right thing.

The state government has trusted us to look out for each other, and has been rewarded for this trust with very few Covid outbreaks.

Now is not the time for the state government, and the Department of Health, to undermine this good will.

Let’s start with Covid testing. Having people stuck in their cars for 6 to 12 hours so they can do the right thing and get tested is unacceptable and needs to be fixed immediately. We need to open as many testing sites as possible, as quickly as possible.

Similarly, the decision to force people from the safety and comfort of their homes into medi-hotels needs to be reversed, when their only crime was bad luck for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are a range of reasons we should oppose the medi-hotel decision.

The exterior of Peppers Waymouth Adelaide Hotel, one of Adelaide’s medi-hotels. Picture: Emma Brasier

First, and most importantly, being forced out of your home and into a medi-hotel, when you have broken no law – and in fact have obeyed the law by signing into a venue through a QR code – is a breach of fundamental civil liberties.

To make things worse, we know most Covid cases are coming out of medi-hotels, so why put people at additional risk of catching it?

We also know that being locked down in full self-isolation is mentally challenging enough at home, with the ability to ‘tidy your sock drawer’, cook, sit outside, garden, or work from home, let alone if you are forced into a medi-hotel without the comforts of home.

Unlike people coming back from overseas who made the conscious choice to return, knowing they must (and should) quarantine in a medi-hotel for the safety of our community, forcing people out of their homes into a medi-hotel because of bad luck and obeying the law, is entirely another. No other state has done this.

What should be of equal concern is how this Draconian decision will undermine the QR code system, which we know South Australians have been very good at using.

People should be rewarded for doing the right thing and signing in – not encouraged to not sign in – because they know the police may then escort them from their home to a medi-hotel in the event of a Covid outbreak.

Finally, the other very real risk of this decision is that people will stop going out if they think the result is being sent to a medi-hotel. This will further damage our small business community who have struggled through lockdowns, restrictions, and ongoing uncertainty. Our small businesses are hurting badly. We cannot afford to hurt them more.

Nobody wants Covid to run rife and nobody wants to lose a loved one, but this is not the way to encourage South Australians who have played by the rules to keep doing so.

Nobody ever gets things right all the time, especially during the uncharted territory of Covid.

So in a gesture of good will, the government – or more specifically SA Health – could fix the testing queues, reverse the medi-hotel decision, send people home, and then apologise, just like the Prime Minister did on Thursday.

* Nicolle Flint is the Boothby Liberal MP