Coronavirus: Bereaved daughter Sarah Caisip wears full PPE to view father’s body after being refused exemption to attend funeral

Sarah Caisip should’ve been allowed to grieve. Instead she was overwhelmed by rage and disgust. And the rest of Australia looked on in utter disbelief.

Sarah Caisip about to see her dad for the last time at the Mount Gravatt Cemetery in Brisbane on Thursday. Picture: Annette Dew

At a time when Sarah Caisip, should have been consumed by grief, she was instead overwhelmed by rage and disgust.

And the rest of Australia looked on in utter disbelief. This is what we’ve become.

Ms Caisip’s right to farewell her late father —surely one of the most fundamental human entitlements —was cruelly denied by a political machine so bereft of humanity that the best the 26-year-old Canberran got was a few minutes alone with the casket in the empty chapel, 20 minutes after the funeral service had concluded.

Ms Caisip had wanted to attend her father Bernard’s funeral in Brisbane on Thursday, and to grieve alongside her 11-year-old sister and mother .

Instead, she was hurled into the vortex of the political storm over Australia’s COVID-related border closures, a pawn in the increasingly bitter stand-off between Scott Morrison and an election-bound Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Having been denied the opportunity to say goodbye to her father, Bernard Prendergast, before he lost his battle with cancer on September 2, Ms Caisip wanted an exemption from hotel quarantine to attend the funeral. But rules were rules, she was told.

Moruners outside Mr Prendergast’s funeral. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Despite the intervention of the Prime Minister on Thursday, who appealed to Ms Palaszczuk to have a heart, the Queensland bureaucracy stood firm.

The young woman cut a forlorn figure when she stepped out of a grey, state government-supplied car gloved and gowned in protective garb, her face covered by a surgical mask and shield.

Her mother, Myrna Prendergast, and 11-year-old sister Isabel had stayed back but were not permitted to approach her. They huddled together in the gloom of the overcast day.

“I came from virus-free Canberra so the fact I’m even in quarantine is beyond belief,” Ms Caisip wrote in a searing open letter to the Premier, tabled by the Liberal National Party opposition in state parliament. “But the fact that I am being denied my basic human rights to care for my grief-stricken mother and little 11-year-old sister enrages, disgusts and devastates me at the same time.”

Sarah Caisip (left) with her father, Bernard Prendergast, and younger sister, Isobel Prendergast, 11. Picture: Supplied

An emotional Mr Morrison told Sydney radio station 2GB that he had phoned Ms Palaszczuk asking for dispensation for Ms Caisip to attend the funeral.

Referring to the death of his own father, John, in January, he said: “All of us who have been through that process know how important a day like today is. It’s still fresh in my mind.”

Ms Palaszczuk insisted it was not her decision to make, but she would advise Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young of his concern. The Prime Minister’s Office said Mr Morrison pointed out: “You’re the Premier. You have the power to make this happen.”

Sarah Caisip arrives at Mt Gravatt Cemetery. Picture:: Glenn Hunt

Ms Palaszczuk said in state parliament she would “not be bullied and nor will I be intimidated by the Prime Minister of this country who contacted me this morning.”

Challenged by state Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington to “show some compassion”, Ms Palaszczuk questioned whether the LNP had colluded with the Prime Minister’s Office to score political points ahead of the October 31 election.

Referring to her telephone conversation with Mr Morrison, she said: “The Prime Minister said to me at the time that he had not gone public, but I knew he would go public. This is a very distressing time. My question to the Leader of the Opposition is: did anyone from the Prime Minister’s Office contact the Leader of the Opposition? We know everything is co-ordinated these days. To use the personal tragedy of this family is disgusting.”

Myrna and Isobel Prendergast, centre, at Mr Prendergast’s funeral. Picture: Glenn Hunt

Pressed on whether Ms Caisip’s treatment would be investigated, Ms Palaszczuk repeated it was a matter for Dr Young. “I made it very clear that it is not my decision and that I would pass the information on to the Chief Health Officer. It is the Chief Health Officer’s decision to make,” she said of the ban on Ms Caisip attending the funeral.

Federal Labor health spokesman Chris Bowen would not be drawn on whether this was right or wrong, saying exceptions to border rules had to be worked through co-operatively, carefully and as compassionately as possible.

“While the border restrictions are very important and we continue to support all premiers regardless of partisanship in those decisions they have taken based on health advice, of course there will need to be exemptions made and exemptions are made,” he said.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said there needed to be transparency around exemptions, and those denied a waiver should have the right to appeal. In Ms Caisip’s case, she should have been allowed to go to her father’s funeral in a “COVID-safe way”.

Dr Young dealt with every exemption application during the early days of the pandemic, but the caseload overwhelmed her capacity to keep up. A unit of eight clinicians helps process medical and hardship exemption applications, of which there are thousands a day. Defending her decision on Ms Caisip, Dr Young said funerals provided a “very, very high” transmission risk for the virus. “Although I understand the enormous toll this is taking on people to come here to Queensland to attend a funeral of a loved one … they can’t do that until they’ve been in quarantine for 14 days.

“The last thing I’d want to happen is to have an outbreak at a funeral,” she said.

Sarah Caisip leaves Mount Gravatt Cemetery after viewing her father’s body. Picture: Glenn Hunt