Victims’ families plead for answers as health department charged over bungled hotel quarantine scheme

“Traumatised” families of Covid victims are hoping legal action against the Health Department over the hotel quarantine fiasco will finally deliver accountability.

Victoria’s Health Department is facing fines totalling up to $95m after being hit with landmark legal action over its hotel quarantine debacle.

After a 15-month investigation, WorkSafe charged the department with 58 breaches, alleging the incidents endangered the lives of its workers, security guards or hotel quarantine guests.

With each charge carrying a penalty of up to $1.64m, the legal action could see taxpayers cough up $95.1m if the ­department is found guilty of them all.

The workplace authority is not pushing to prosecute any individuals over the debacle that sparked Victoria’s second coronavirus wave.

And while the leaks from hotel quarantine ultimately claimed 801 lives, WorkSafe was not able to charge the department under more severe industrial manslaughter laws because they were introduced after the quarantine program was initiated.

Both the Andrews government and the Health Department refused to comment on the charges on Wednesday.

Victoria’s Department of Health has been charged over Melbourne’s hotel quarantine program. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Opposition workplace safety spokesman Nick Wakeling said the hotel quarantine program represented “the biggest failure in workplace health and safety in Victoria’s history”.

“Victoria’s second wave killed 801 Victorians. These Victorians, their families and friends, the thousands of Victorians who contracted Covid-19, and all Victorians who endured a gruelling 111-day lockdown as a result of the second wave, deserve justice,” Mr Wakeling said.

“Daniel Andrews’ failed hotel quarantine system put every Victorian at risk and for that the government must be held to account.”

Having pushed for WorkSafe action, Self-Employed Australia chief executive officer Ken Phillips said it was “nonsense” those responsible for the program were not being charged as individuals.

“It is a step in the right direction, but it is only a step,” Mr Phillips said.

“We have alleged breaches by 27 individuals and entities, they have taken a move against just one of those.

“They have said to us in writing, ‘That is the end of the matter’. We don’t take that.”

The hotel quarantine scheme has been plagued with controversies. Picture: Quinn Rooney

The matter is listed for a filing hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on October 22.

WorkSafe on Wednesday, alleged: ­“Department of Health employees, Victorian government authorised officers on secondment or security guards were put at risk of serious illness or death through contracting Covid-19 from an infected ­returned traveller, another person working in the hotels or from a contaminated surface.

“The decision to prosecute has been made in accordance with WorkSafe’s general ­prosecution guidelines, which ­require WorkSafe to consider whether there is sufficient ­evidence to support a reasonable prospect of conviction and whether bringing a ­prosecution is in the public ­interest.”

The charges include 17 ­alleged counts of failing to provide and maintain a working environment that was safe for its employees; and 41 allegations that the department failed to ensure others who were not employees – such as hotel guests – were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

WorkSafe ran a months-long investigation into the progam. Picture: David Crosling

After reviewing tens of thousands of documents and multiple witness interviews, WorkSafe alleged the department failed to appoint people with infection control expertise within hotels used for quarantining return travellers.

It claims the department failed to provide security guards with face-to-face infection prevention and control training before they commenced work in the program, then failed to provide written instruction for the use of personal protective equipment.

It also alleges the department failed to update written instructions relating to the wearing of masks at several of the hotels.

A multimillion-dollar judicial inquiry last year slammed the catastrophic hotel quarantine program, finding it was so hastily put ­together, nobody sufficiently considered the impact on public health and the spread of coronavirus.

But the inquiry, headed by former judge Jennifer Coate, was heavily criticised for determining “no person or agency claimed any responsibility” for the decision to use private ­security guards in hotel ­quarantine.

Hotel Quarantine guest at the Holiday Inn .

Although Victoria introduced industrial manslaughter laws on July 1, 2020 – before hundreds of Victorians died due to hotel quarantine virus leaks – WorkSafe was restricted to considering charges only under laws that were in place when the program was implemented in March 2020.

Herbert Smith Freehill health and safety lawyer Steve Bell said WorkSafe had the choice to charge individuals for any breaches it believed had occurred in the hotel quarantine program, but elected to seek a prosecution against the Crown through the Department of Health.

Mr Bell said the key to the hearing would be whether WorkSafe could prove the department had exposed people to a risk when it was known there was something that could have been done to prevent the danger in the rapidly evolving pandemic.

“It is atypical for health and safety law to be used to prosecute what on one level may be clinical failings, as opposed to traditional health and safety failings,” Mr Bell said, adding: “The pandemic will be a distant memory by the time these charges are concluded.”

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said online: “So a government authority (WorkCover) will file charges against a government department (Health) for the faults of government ministers, but the government (taxpayers) will pay the ultimate fines. That’s absurd.”

AGED CARE VICTIMS’ FAMILIES SPEAKS OUT

Families of Victorian Covid victims are hoping legal action against the Health Department will bring closure following the devastating deaths of their loved ones.

Spiro Vasilakis’s mother Maria, 81, was among 45 residents at St Basil’s aged care home to die of coronavirus during last year’s deadly second wave, sparked by hotel quarantine leaks. He said seeing those responsible held to ­account would “bring closure” to his family.

Spiros Vasilakis mother Maria died of Covid during the second wave. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Maria Vasilakis with her children, Dora and Spiro.

“(If) you have investigated and you have found the guilty party and made them and held them accountable then, yes, that puts it to rest,” he said.

“As a one-time manager, one of the things that I know is how important training is, you don’t train somebody properly they’re going to do a s--t job.”

Mr Vasilakis said the past 14 months had been a “rough journey” as his family sought answers about his mother’s death. “These investigations for all of us, they seem to be taking one hell of a long time,” he said.

“We all are really looking forward to finally getting some closure on it.”

Haralambos Bakirtzidis, 79, died at Footscray Hospital on July 15 last year after falling ill with Covid-19 two weeks earlier. The former carpenter’s death left behind devastated wife Niki of almost 60 years.

Maidstone man Haralambos Bakirtzidis, pictured with his wife, Niki, died with coronavirus aged 79.

The couple’s daughter Athina said her father’s death left her “traumatised” and somebody was responsible for the program’s mismanagement.

“It (legal action) might make the people who have lost loved ones feel that someone is being held accountable,” she said. “It does make me angry that not enough steps were taken to prevent it escaping into the community.

“I’m not out for revenge or anything like that because how can you be? Who are you going to point the finger at?

“But then things weren’t done properly back then... They do need to be held accountable.”

Some families previously slammed last year’s Coate ­inquiry, saying it was not worth the paper it was written on after it found that “no person or agency claimed any responsibility” for the ­decision to hire private security to secure the hotels.

Alf Jordan died with Covid aged 90.

Gabrielle Cordwell, who lost her grandfather Alf Jordan, 90, told the Herald Sun on Wednesday that the “buck stops with someone”.

But she doubted any individual would be held responsible.

“They’ve been charged but it doesn’t really change a thing,” she said.

“It (outbreak) happened back then, they said it would never happen again, but it’s come back and look where we are now.”

Ms Cordwell said she hoped the proceedings would lead to “some sort of change”.