Adelaide’s Tom’s Court COVID-19 medi-hotel facility cost taxpayers more than $200,000 to modify

The amount South Australian taxpayers have spent to modify Australia’s first quarantine facility, Tom’s Court Hotel in the CBD, has been revealed.

Acting inspector Bryce Wood and nurse unit manager Nikki Clark who will be working at the new Tom's Court Hotel COVID-19 facility where sick coronavirus patients will recover. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

Taxpayers have spent more than $200,000 to modify Australia’s first quarantine facility for infectious coronavirus patients, which opened on Monday at a CBD medi-hotel.

Tom’s Court Hotel, on King William Street, remained empty on Monday night after SA Health reported a fourth day of no COVID-19 cases.

SA Health spent more than $200,000 on upgrading ventilation, installing CCTV and placing laser senses on doors.

Chief public health officer, Nicola Spurrier, told an Adelaide University public lecture on Monday that room cooking facilities and fridges helped doors to stay closed more often.

“You can never get the risk down to zero, OK, you have infectious people there,” she said.

Inside the Tom's Court hotel COVID-19 patient facility. Picture: Dean Martin

Outside Tom's Court hotel. Picture: Dean Martin

It comes as at least 5068 travellers from Victoria replied to more than 25,000 messages warning about the Melbourne outbreak. Of those linked to Tullamarine Airport, 114 people must quarantine and 61 seek urgent testing.

Tom’s Court opened on Monday with “robust” security and overhauled ventilation systems.

Almost 60 specially trained SA Health frontline staff and police – but no private security guards – will work at the facility, which will treat all COVID-19 cases.

Authorities have extensively upgraded the 72-bed medi-hotel – launched almost three months after first proposed – with better ventilation, more security cameras and improved surface cleaning.

An official review last year found poor ventilation in the Peppers medi-hotel may have caused a virus leak, sparking the state’s worst cluster and triggering a snap statewide lockdown.

The current Victorian five-day lockdown has been sparked by the escalating Melbourne Airport Holiday Inn cluster linked to the mutant British strain.

Welcome kits are left for guests quarantining in Tom's Court hotel. Picture: Dean Martin