Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young navigates pandemic amid a political storm

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has suddenly been turned into a political figure less than two months out from the state election.

Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has found herself at the centre of a political storm as she navigates the state through the worst pandemic in living memory.

Amendments to the Public Health Act introduced in the early weeks of the unprecedented health crisis, give her extraordinary powers to issue directions designed to contain the spread of the highly infectious virus, which has killed more than 900,000 people worldwide.

Directions such as those limiting the size of gatherings in Queenslanders’ homes, aged care facility lockdowns and enforcing people travelling from hot spots into hotel quarantine have been at the centre of the state’s highly successful strategy to keep people safe.

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Queensland Chief Health Officer of Queensland Dr. Jeannette Young. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Attila Csaszar

But with the pandemic well into its eighth month, a state election in sight and gut-wrenching stories emerging of people seeking quarantine exemptions to attend funerals or visit sick loved ones, Dr Young has suddenly become a political figure, rather than a trusted health bureaucrat.

Under a barrage of questioning this week over Queensland’s refusal to allow a 26-year-old Canberra woman to attend her father’s funeral, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk repeatedly told journalists exemptions were an issue for Dr Young.

Australian Medical Association Queensland president Chris Perry and former Queensland Chief Health Officer Gerry FitzGerald say that’s how it should be.

They say keeping health decisions apolitical is important in protecting the state and its people during public health emergencies.

“If you turned it around the other way and say the politicians were making those calls, then I think people would be naturally worried,” Professor FitzGerald said.

“That’s why the legislation is structured that way that the call be made on health grounds and not on political grounds.”

Prof FitzGerald said criticism of Dr Young over her public health directives was “disappointing”.

“I think we’ve got to support people doing a difficult job and making the calls that they have to make,” he said. “It’s an extraordinarily difficult job.

“At the end of the day the only thing driving Jeannette or any of the people involved, including the Premier, is the protection and the health and wellbeing of Queenslanders.”

Dr Perry also backed Dr Young.

“She does a very good job,” he said.

The proof is in Queensland’s coronavirus statistics.

Queensland has recorded just 1149 of Australia’s total of more than 26,000 known infections – less than five per cent.

Six Queenslanders have died after contracting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, out of almost 800 Australian deaths – not even one per cent of the national total.

While former Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts backed the pandemic being treated as a “disease, not a policy” issue, he questioned whether some exemptions were being made under public health regulations for economic, rather than medical, reasons.

“What is missing is clarity or transparency around the way in which decisions are being made,” he said.

“For example, allowing people to come in because they’re bringing money into the economy. How does that sit with science?

“That seems more like a policy decision than a medical decision.”

Originally published as Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young navigates pandemic amid a political storm