SA Health intensive care medico Dr Evan Everest gave Port Adelaide families SA travel exemptions
The high-level SA Health official who gave 11 Port Adelaide family members an exemption to travel from Victoria for a footy match is an intensive care specialist, The Advertiser can reveal.
SA News
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One of the state’s deputy chief public health officers signed off on the “inappropriate decision” to grant relatives of Port Adelaide players special permission to travel from coronavirus hotspot Victoria.
Government documents identify leading intensive care medico Dr Evan Everest as the senior SA Health bureaucrat who signed off exemption forms for the 11 interstate-based families.
Dr Everest, who became deputy to chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier at the pandemic’s peak, has been counselled over his mistake.
Some of the Port relatives – including Darcy Byrne-Jones’s family, Travis Boak’s mum and Tom Rockliff’s parents – had already arrived in SA to start their self-funded 14-day hotel quarantine.
They are due to be released from their Pullman Hotel quarantine as early as Tuesday.
Exemptions were revoked for the relatives of Ollie Wines, Robbie Gray and Tom Clurey.
SA Health has consistently refused to name Dr Everest, who is said to have no affiliations with the Power.
No disciplinary action has been imposed against Dr Everest, who sits on the exemption committee that signs off on compassionate and other travel requests.
Since the controversy erupted almost a fortnight ago, government officials have been unable to explain on what grounds the exemption was granted.
The government has faced fierce criticism over claims of double standards as other SA Health exemption requests are rejected.
A formal government review has been launched after senior state government officials were in the dark including Premier Steven Marshall, Health Minister Stephen Wade, Prof Spurrier and other departmental chiefs.
The external review, undertaken by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, is investigating whether a template was used that contained Dr Everest’s “generic signature”.
While SA Health refused to say if any other public servant was involved, multiple sources alleged it was Dr Everest’s decision.
Dr Everest, a former deputy state controller and Flinders Medical Centre senior intensive care consultant, remains on the exemptions committee.
Mr Marshall, who has publicly apologised for the “error of judgment”, has promised to publish the review, which he said was expected to be complete “within days”.
Dr Everest, who has been credited with overseeing critical decisions during the coronavirus fight, did not return calls or respond to messages.
SA Health refused to answer a series of written questions while Prof Spurrier and SA Health’s boss Dr Chris McGowan were unavailable for comment.
While Mr Wade would not comment about the row, he praised Dr Everest’s work that has included overseeing clinical systems, ICU surge capacity and elective surgery rescheduling.
“Evan Everest is a key member of our public health team who have been working long hours in a stressful environment for more than seven months,” he said.
“His service has been key to protecting the people of South Australia from COVID-19, particularly his work getting the hospital network ready.”
Prof Spurrier, who was visibly angry when revealing the “very disappointing” decision at Parliament, has since said “this is not about a witch hunt, this is about improving our processes”.
In a Flinders University lecture last week she described how the department had faced incidents that could shake public confidence including the Port “doozy”.
“That’s my life at the moment sitting on this exemption committee looking at all the requests for people wanting to come to South Australia from Victoria and it is quite heartbreaking,” she said in her Chalmers Oration address.
Prof Spurrier has said no other similar type of exemptions have been granted.
She has since rejoined the exemptions committee.
No blame has been apportioned to any of the families or the Power, which had no involvement in the process.
Executive director of Events South Australia, Hitaf Rasheed, has said she helped initially to connect a representative of the families to SA Health.
But Ms Rasheed, a former media and welfare staffer for the Power, said she had no involvement in any decision making.
An SA Health spokeswoman refused to comment.
“As previously announced, a review into the processes of the Exemption Committee is underway,” she said in a statement.
“No further comment will be provided until the review is complete.”