Darwin-bound critical care doctor blasts government inaction as stranded Australians struggle to fly home
CRITICAL care doctor Saras Chauhan is due to start work in Darwin once she’s done with quarantine but getting back in the country was torturous– and there are thousands more Aussies going through the same emotional turmoil
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CRITICAL care doctor Saras Chauhan is due to start work at Royal Darwin Hospital once she completes mandatory quarantine in a hotel reserved for returning Australians.
But getting back on Australian soil after inadvertently finding herself on the frontline of London’s coronavirus disaster for eight months involved three cancelled flights, four travel agents, contacting bureaucrats across two countries, exorbitant costs and constant emotional turmoil.
This is the reality for the tens of thousands of Australians fighting to get home from overseas.
They say the system just isn’t good enough, particularly since celebrities and tennis players get through the caps.
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Dr Chauhan said the Commonwealth had had since March 2020 to train people, create more quarantine facilities or find different ways of bringing citizens home in a COVID-safe way, as other countries had managed.
“The emotional turmoil and grief that people are going through … They just need to be able to come home,” she said.
Even with national cabinet on Friday resolving to increase international arrival caps after a clampdown last month, there will still be 283 fewer spots each week compared to January levels.
Negotiations are under way to increase or “potentially double” the capacity of Darwin’s Howard Springs facility, now 850 people per fortnight, although Chief Minister Michael Gunner has indicated this will be post-cyclone season.
Dr Chauhan, who has worked at Alice Springs Hospital, had flown to the UK before the pandemic proper in early 2020 as part of her emergency and trauma training.
Soon she was on the frontline of a medical system at breaking point, where she remained for eight months.
But with her contract up and a new one due to begin in Darwin, Dr Chauhan said navigating unreliable airlines, unresponsive bureaucrats and everchanging rules was incredibly difficult.
Airlines were charging “extortionate” fares between $8000 and $18,000, with cancellations more likely than not.
She was bumped off three commercial flights and missed another after the results of a required pre-departure COVID-19 test were not returned on time.
“I’m an emergency doctor … I’m used to incredibly stressful situations and changing scenarios, and this wrecked me,” she said.
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“The whole time you don’t sleep, you don’t eat, you’re checking the websites … constantly paranoid that you’re going to get cancelled or bumped, which is what’s happening to everybody.”
Dr Chauhan opted not to pursue a repatriation flight, knowing there were Aussies “in far worse situations” than she was, including the elderly, critically ill or jobless.
“It’s just really upsetting that the government is so removed from the impact that it’s having on Australians’ mental health, it’s really heartbreaking to see every day.”
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