Government documents, seen by NewsLocal following an order for papers by Labor MLC and Shadow Corrections spokeswoman Tara Moriarty, revealed Covid-positive inmates at the privately-run Parklea Correctional Centre in Sydney’s west were sent to public hospital emergency departments and St Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst at the height of the pandemic.

“Covid positive custodial patients requiring urgent hospitalisation are to be transferred via ambulance matrix (most likely) to WSLHD ED,” the government document said. “Covid positive custodial patients requiring hospitalisation in non-urgent circumstances will be transferred to St Vincent’s Public Hospital for care.

“This is to support continuity of care.”

A Justice Health report on September 1 confirmed “deteriorating patients” from Parklea were being transferred to the St Vincent’s Darlinghurst campus for treatment, while a field hospital was set up at the privately-run prison.

By the time the field hospital was set up, there were 62 cases of covid-infected inmates.

However, in May 2020 a specialist, state-of-the-art Covid hospital was built inside the MRRC at Silverwater to provide critical treatment services for prisoners battling the deadly virus.

It comes as NewsLocal can reveal the operator of the prison wasn’t invited to attend daily briefings about the Covid-19 outbreak within its own facility until cases had dramatically risen to 108 positive inmates.

The Government documents revealed representatives of prison operator MTC-Broadspectrum weren’t provided “membership” to daily Covid briefings — which started on August 30 — until September 4.

The Ministry of Health, St Vincent’s Hospital representatives and a series of doctors, as well as Justice Health launched daily Covid briefings regarding the growing outbreak at Parklea Correctional Centre, which weren’t attended by a single representative of Corrective Services NSW until Deputy Commissioner Luke Grant attended a briefing on September 3 — when cases had risen to 85.

A Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman told NewsLocal stakeholders “met as often as necessary during this period, via both formal and informal meetings”.

“The attendee lists depended on the situation at the time and the nature of the expertise required,” she said. “Any suggestion relevant people were excluded is incorrect.”

The government documents also confirmed fresh custodies — including some found to have Covid-19 — were housed overnight at the Emu Plains Amber Laurel, Surry Hills and Kariong correctional centres before being transferred to the MRRC at Silverwater.

“These cases were held in isolation and moved to the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre as soon as it was safe and practicable to do so,” the spokeswoman said in response to the documents, “That was and still is our policy.”

Shadow Corrections spokeswoman Tara Moriarty said Corrective Services NSW were “ill-prepared and too slow to act on the recent Covid outbreak in NSW Prisons”.

“Internal documents show a failure of communication and management within the system,” she said.

Ms Moriarty raised concern over the fact that operators of Parklea Correctional Centre weren’t part of daily conferences regarding the Covid cluster at the centre until September 4, while also questioning Corrective Services NSW’s decision to continue to allow fresh custodies to be housed at facilities outside the MRRC.

“Prisons in NSW are the most controlled facilities in the State,” she said.

“The NSW Government must ensure that a failure like this one cannot be allowed to happen again.”

The handling of Covid-19 at Parklea Correctional Centre will be the focus of an independent inquiry, announced by Corrections Minister Anthony Roberts last week, after more than 170 inmates contracted Covid inside the prison by September.

Mr Roberts said terms of reference for the inquiry were to investigate the application of Covid-related policies and procedures at Parklea, to investigate the circumstances outlined in two recent legal cases related to the management of Covid risks, consider whether appropriate Covid risk management processes and health advice were followed in the two legal cases, and consider the respective roles and responsibility of Corrective Services New South Wales, the Justice and Forensic Mental Health Network, MTC-Broadspectrum and Vincent’s Hospital network in relation to those two legal cases.

Justice Health was contacted for comment.