Embattled hotel quarantine doctor claims she was hospitalised against her will after staging protest

A Queensland Health doctor who said she had to sleep on the airport floor amid a quarantine debacle has made new claims she was forced into hospital after bogus allegations she was suicidal.

A grieving Queensland Health doctor, who initiated a hunger strike after her employer denied her a hotel quarantine exemption, claims she was taken to hospital against her will after a false assessment that she was suicidal.

Vinu Verghis said she had been “harassed and lied to” in an “abuse of power”.

Dr Verghis, principal medical education officer at Toowoomba Hospital, said she was furious that she was escorted to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital on November 6 within hours of emailing Queensland Health to inform of her protest.

Dr Vinu Verghis claims she was hospitalised against her will. Pics supplied.,

“I have a right to initiate a hunger strike, I am fully mentally competent, and I want it on record that if I die, Queensland Health will be liable,” she told The Courier-Mail from her Rydges South Bank room.

“I repeatedly told nurses, ambulance officers and police who were badgering me about my mental health that I was not suicidal, I was grieving the loss of my mother, but they used their power to abuse and bully me.

“One ambulance officer told me he had seen evidence that I threatened suicide – what evidence? There is none,” she said.

“The doctor in the emergency department who assessed me found no evidence I was at risk and sent me back to the hotel.

“But I now have a mental health record, which is detrimental to my future employment.”

After arriving in Brisbane on November 3 and requesting to quarantine in her Moggill home, vacant because her husband is working in Western Australia, the fully vaccinated medico said she was disgusted to have the request denied three days later.

“On November 6, George Clooney and his family flew in after quarantining on a farm in NSW, and Dannii Minogue was previously given a get-out-of-jail card, but I can’t act or sing so I am denied basic human rights,” she said.

Dr Vinu Verghis was refused home quarantine in QLD and says she was forced to sleep on the airport floor so she would not lose her place in hotel quarantine – Photo Steve Pohlner

Dr Verghis, 50, is demanding to grieve her mother – whose ashes she retrieved from India – according to her Orthodox Christian beliefs and rituals. She said these included lighting a candle in her home for 40 days until her mother’s soul ascended to heaven.

“A hunger strike is the only way I believe I can get Queensland Health to hear me and stop depriving me of the mourning rituals I must do for my mother,” she said.

Video footage taken by Dr Verghis on November 6 and seen by The Courier-Mail shows a nurse, ambulance officer and another clinician in full PPE at Dr Verghis’s hotel door trying to assess her condition.

One admitted Dr Verghis’s husband had not called the ambulance – a claim Dr Verghis was earlier told and said was a “lie” – but that he had phoned Rydges after being unable to contact her.

Dr Verghis said she refused to answer any calls without caller ID.

The clinician said hotel staff had contacted the Emergency Operations Centre after also being unable to reach her, and EOC called the ambulance.

Dr Verghis told The Courier-Mail she walked, escorted by police, to the ambulance vehicle because if she’d resisted “they would have physically or chemically restrained me”.

On November 7, Dr Verghis wrote to Queensland Health, demanding “evidence in writing as to how you deemed that I was a risk to my own health to evoke the emergency (response) act; I need to see the full transcript”.

She said she had not received a response.

A Queensland Health spokesperson said the department could not comment on individual cases.

Dr Vinu Verghis slept on the floor of Melbourne Airport as she tries to make her way back home after burying her mother in India. Picture: Supplied

“The risks associated with overseas travellers and the requirements for them to hotel quarantine have not changed,” the spokesperson said.

“A person travelling overseas for any reason during a pandemic should leave understanding what is required of them when they return.

“The safety and wellbeing of staff and guests in the Queensland hotel quarantine system is a key priority, and there are a number of protections in place to support them.

“That is why Queensland Health, as well as various government and community agencies, conduct regular wellbeing check-ups for people in mandatory quarantine.”

Last week, Dr Verghis told The Courier-Mail she said was forced to sleep on an airport floor after being told if she left Melbourne airport in the 17 hours before her connecting flight to Brisbane, she would lose her place in hotel quarantine.

She applied for home quarantine the following day after saying someone in Melbourne airport told her it was a possibility.

“As a medical professional, I understand the government doesn’t want a Covid outbreak, but I am not responsible for the one-third of Queenslanders who choose not to get vaccinated,” she said.

“I should be allowed to quarantine in the safety of my own home.”