‘Kept in the dark’: Ruby Princess guests slam Carnival, NSW Health in letters to inquiry
An inquiry investigating the Ruby Princess coronavirus scandal has received submissions from more than 100 cruise ship guests, many of whom slammed NSW Health and Carnival with one man saying: “My wife did not deserve to die because of very poor management.”
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Ruby Princess crew boasted it was the “safest place on the planet”, but passengers have vented their frustration at the coronavirus cruise ship fiasco, telling an inquiry: “Our lives were put at risk.”
An inquiry investigating the scandal has received submissions from more than 100 guests who took the ill-fated voyage from Sydney to New Zealand, many of whom became infected with COVID-19, and some who lost their partners to the deadly disease.
Nearly 2,700 people were allowed to disembark the vessel at Circular Quay on March 19 without proper health checks, a decision which has been linked to some 700 infections and 21 deaths nationwide.
“My wife did not deserve to die because of very poor management and it has now broken my family forever,” Queensland man and coronavirus survivor Graeme Lake wrote.
“We can never get over this … yes, I'm very angry.”
One unnamed COVID-19 patient felt passengers were “kept in the dark” about suspected cases on board, while fellow guest Martyn Morris said the ship’s operators were “negligent in their duty of care towards their crew and passengers, sadly with serious consequences.”
A Hornsby resident questioned why the cruise was allowed to go ahead at all given the escalating pandemic.
“I’m on Immunotherapy and my wife has a heart problem,” the man, whose name was redacted, said.
“Our lives were put at risk.”
Passenger Deborah Hystek suggested Carnival should have prioritised the health of passengers over the company’s bottom line.
Another unnamed UK-based guest said: “I feel we have been duped into going on a cruise that should never have sailed.”
Lyda Cryer agreed, noting that proper health checks should have been carried out with no-one allowed to disembark until the results of COVID-19 tests were known.
“I feel badly let down by NSW Health,” she said.
The numbers of ill passengers grew during the cruise, with Sydney man and COVID-19 patient Frederick Jackson noticing restaurant waiters “coughing a lot,” while Thelma Horne became concerned for a pale, sweaty woman in a wheelchair she encountered in a lift.
“I was horrified as I knew about COVID-19 and this woman looked as if she was dying,” she said.
A retired GP said the Ruby Princess held packed parties on board and during the final dinner, the chefs and kitchen staff paraded into a dining room asking customers to wave their napkins above their heads.
“We did not do this as we thought waving napkins could easily spread further any airborne virus,” he said.
“On two occasions, the entertainment director actually announced on the PA that Ruby Princess was the safest place on the planet.”
On the final day of the cruise, Rhonda Stevens said she was “disgusted” when she opened a face towel in her cabin that was “covered in dry faeces or dried blood.”
She and several other guests said they would have never gone on the cruise had they been offered a refund, or had they known sick passengers had been on the previous voyage that docked on March 8.
“I can assure you that had we been advised, I probably would not have gone on our cruise as I have Parkinson‘s and am in a high risk category,” Ms Stevens wrote.
Trevor Potter said the liner’s embarkation screening procedure “was a shambles” with crowds of people mingling in a tightly packed environment for several hours, while the hasty disembarkation had no biosecurity clearances at all.
“We are not going on more cruises and have bought a caravan!!” he said.
