Inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine program sheds light on misery of guests and staff
The inquiry into Victoria’s botched hotel quarantine program has heard it was difficult and unpleasant for staff and management as it was for those detained.
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Analysis: The hotel quarantine inquiry has shed light on a new area of misery in the already deeply unhappy saga of Victoria’s failed efforts to stop coronavirus spreading from overseas passengers into the general population.
We now know it was as difficult and unpleasant for hotel staff and management as it was for those detained.
Passengers were being bussed in to hotels after long-haul flights where they hadn’t been served food.
Hungry and tired, and many with small, hungry, fractious children, they then had to wait up to four hours to be checked in because no one gave the hotels any detailed information about them.
Once detained, they were often given food they didn’t like or wasn’t appropriate, were told they couldn’t order in food, or buy a beer, or set foot outside their rooms.
Smokers had their cigarettes confiscated in case they were tempted to sneak a smoke in the room.
The experience was so upsetting, some guests turned their anger on hotel staff and complained for the entire 14 days of their mandatory quarantine.
As Ram Mandyam, general manager of the Travelodge at Docklands, told the inquiry: “There was a lack of appropriate support from the Victorian government for the hotel, that made the experience difficult and unpleasant.’’
Eventually, common sense prevailed and several days after the program began, detainees were allowed to order in food, order extra food and limited alcohol from room service menus (at their own expense) and get fresh air breaks from their rooms.
These relatively minor changes made the confinement easier to bear for guests and the staff.
This issue doesn’t go to the heart of the quarantine breaches, the infection control failures and the appalling behaviour of some security guards.
But with quarantining in hotels continuing to this day, it provides valuable lessons in how to get it right next time.
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