Ruby Princess passenger tells of last time she saw her friend before COVID death
A Ruby Princess passenger has described the last time she saw her friend of half a century on board the cruise ship before she became the first guest to die of COVID-19.
Police & Courts
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- Ruby Princess party two days before Sydney docking
The elderly husband of the first Ruby Princess passenger to die from coronavirus was “a mess” after a “rude” crew member announced his sick partner would be stretchered off the cruise ship in the middle of the night, an inquiry heard.
Brian Bacon went on the ill-fated trip from Sydney to New Zealand with his wife Lesley and their friend of 50 years, Josephine Roope.
Mrs Bacon became so sick she needed an emergency ambulance transfer when the vessel docked back at Circular Quay in the early hours of March 19.
She had tested negative to influenza and Ms Roope feared she may have COVID-19 as she was “trying to calm Brian down”.
“He was a mess because of (how) Les was,” Ms Roope said in her police statement.
“I kept trying to reassure him that she was OK.”
Ms Roope said a “very rude” nurse had told them to come to the medical centre at 2am as Mrs Bacon would be taken off the cruise but did not give a specific reason.
“Once again the lady was quite rude, she was angry because we didn’t have our luggage,” Ms Roope said.
“Once again, I questioned why we had to go with (Les) when we were told it was only ‘the flu’.”
The 81-year-old Wollongong woman said medical staff had repeatedly said “it’s only the flu, nothing to worry about” despite Mrs Bacon’s condition deteriorating rapidly during the final days of the voyage.
“That was the last time that I saw Les,” Ms Roope said.
“I popped my head around to see her. She appeared to be sleeping and still had tubes in her. We never saw her leave the ship in the ambulance.”
Mrs Bacon soon tested positive to COVID-19 and within a week the 77-year-old died.
Straight after farewelling his wife on the ship, Mr Bacon was directed to the guest services desk and asked to pay her $5,400 medical bill by staff who “weren’t very helpful,” Ms Roope said.
“He was a bit short of paying that amount, so I helped him out. We returned to the cabin and rested for a few hours,” she said.
The England-born mother-of-four said Mrs Bacon first had trouble walking while exiting the ship at Dunedin on March 12, and needed to buy another walking stick.
“(We) were getting off the bottom of the gangplank and Les started to complain about her left leg. She was in excruciating pain and couldn’t move it,” Ms Roope said.
The next day Mrs Bacon cancelled her plans to go swimming with dolphins at Akaroa and instead stayed behind to get painkillers from the ship’s medical centre.
Mrs Bacon was “hobbling around” when they again got off the liner at Wellington on March 14 but crew members told her she could not take a wheelchair ashore, Ms Roope said.
Mrs Bacon was coughing when the trio later explored Napier and eventually got a walking frame from the ship.
Ms Roope said the diabetic became worried about her blood sugar levels but “the doctor wouldn’t look into why her insulin was increasing”.
Mrs Bacon was admitted to the medical centre as her leg pains became unbearable.
“She was getting very stressed over it,” Ms Roope said.
While giving evidence, Ms Roope said at no stage was she advised by NSW Health to be tested for the deadly disease, even after her friend had died.
The witness considered it strange that no health screening was done before 2,700 guests were allowed to disembark, asking “why did we not get tested?” and “why did we not get checked going through customs?”
Ms Roope said the same approach was adopted before boarding.
“I was surprised that there was no testing of passenger‘s temperatures and customs had pushed us through in a big hurry,” she said.
The inquiry continues.
CREW ‘VISIBLY UPSET’ ABOUT CORONA UNCERTAINTY
Ruby Princess crew members were “visibly upset” about coronavirus uncertainty in the days before the contaminated cruise ship docked in Sydney, an inquiry heard on Wednesday.
COVID-19 survivor and passenger Paul Reid testified that he spoke to bartenders who were “upset with what was going on behind the scenes with their employment”.
“They weren’t sure where they stood with getting home,” he said.
The asthmatic Sydney man, who later spent time in Westmead Hospital’s intensive care unit, said he thought he had been cleared of the disease while on board after a male doctor told him: “You don’t have corona, you have a common cold.”
Mr Reid had been swabbed for influenza five minutes earlier but the vessel had no capacity to test COVID-19 samples, the inquiry heard.
Relieved, Mr Reid notified family and friends once the liner docked in Circular Quay on March 19, even telling his Uber driver on the way home: “I’d been tested and I was sweet, so she had nothing to worry about.”
The witness said NSW Health later misdiagnosed his wife Rachel when the couple began to feel worse at home, first saying she had tested negative before calling her back a day later to clarify she actually had coronavirus.
“I’m currently still off work. I’m still struggling,” Mr Reid said.
Fellow guest Lynette Jones, who spent eight days in Wollongong Hospital’s isolation ward battling COVID-19, testified that the ship’s doctor made a joke when confirming she had influenza, saying: “Oh well, the test is positive, you’re pregnant!”
Dr Ilse Von Watzdorf told Anthony Londero she did not think he had COVID-19, but was showing signs of a “mild heart attack aggravated by the flu” when he came to the ship’s medical centre on March 16.
Mr Londero told police that when his influenza tests came back negative during the cruise, the doctor told him: “They aren’t going to be happy.”
The coronavirus survivor needed an ambulance transfer to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital when the ship berthed in the early hours of March 19, adding: “While I was waiting to be admitted to the emergency department … I had a seizure.”
The inquiry has heard that Dr Von Watzdorf told Lesley Bacon — a COVID-19 victim who died after being stretchered off the ship — she only had the flu, despite the 77-year-old returning a negative influenza test result.
Documents tendered to the inquiry have also revealed NSW Health’s media director tried to change a Ruby Princess ministerial briefing to shift blame onto the federal government with information that “stresses we are just one cog in the wheel”.
The undated, unattributed review of the scandal glosses over several state government failings in what the inquiry’s commissioner has condemned as “spin”.
NSW Health authorities had deemed the liner a low biosecurity risk before 2,700 people disembarked the notorious liner without proper health checks, in what has become the single largest source of infection nationally.
While the report’s executive summary was being drafted, the department’s senior media advisor Shaun Devitt asked the authors: “Can we add a line here that stresses we are just one cog in the wheel?”
A later version of the report states the decision to allow a ship to enter a NSW port “involves multiple agencies at both state and federal levels,” but did not include Mr Devitt’s suggestion that “NSW Health is just one component of this process and relies on the information provided by these other agencies”.
The inquiry continues.
