Coronavirus: Doctor slams hotel quarantine

A Sydney doctor who has been treating returned travellers ordered into forced isolation in NSW has blown the whistle on ‘lies’ being told by governments about the policy.

Police officers guard returned travellers at a Rydges Hotel. Picture: Gordon McComiskie

A Sydney doctor who has been treating returned travellers ordered into forced isolation in NSW has described the policy as a “disaster” and says vulnerable people should be permitted to quarantine at home.

Dr Paul Finlay has been working at Sydney airport conducting health checks on returned travellers, including on pregnant women, people with dementia and severe mental health conditions.

In an extraordinary attack on the government's hotel isolation policy, Dr Finlay said he could no longer “turn a blind eye” to the “lies” that he claimed are being peddled by state and federal bureaucrats in order to combat the spread of COVID-19.

“The forced hotel isolation to prevent the spread of coronavirus is a disaster,” he said, adding that the interaction between state and federal governments had been "hostile."

Passengers arriving at the Four Points Hotel in Brisbane under police guard.

Dr Finlay said pregnant women and at-risk people with mental health issues were being held in strict quarantine by health and law enforcement officials despite repeated advice from doctors to allow them to isolate at home.

While the vast majority of COVID-19 cases in Australia come from returned travellers, Dr Finlay said a “small percentage” should be permitted to quarantine in their homes based on “compassionate grounds.”

“I’ve been applying for exemptions since the hotel isolation policy began," he said. “Until today, the ministry of health told me that everyone I’d flagged as vulnerable was given their exemption,” he said on Saturday. “Today I learned this was a lie. It hadn’t actually been done.”

One of the vulnerable passengers Dr Finlay flagged for medical exemption was a paraplegic woman who was not allowed to be driven to Wollongong by her carer, who helps with tasks such as bathing, despite the woman’s friends ensuring that her house had been stocked with the necessary supplies for her return.

Quarantined guests at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney under guard by NSW Police. Picture: Matrix

“To my knowledge, she is still languishing in a hotel in Sydney,” Dr Finlay said.

Another vulnerable person forced to quarantine at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney against Dr Finlay’s advice, was a man who had survived being in a fifth-floor hotel room in Kathmandu during the deadly Nepal earthquakes in 2015. He had been trapped for some time with dead bodies nearby.

Wet fries, burnt mushrooms and a single lemon at the 5-star Hilton Hotel in Sydney.

“Understandably, he didn’t want to end up in a hotel with windows that didn’t open, no balcony and no scope for getting out of the room to exercise and feel normal,” Dr Finlay said. “He held grave fears for his mental health and I agreed. I escalated his case a few times to the ministry of health with no communication back to me and no action taken.”

The 5-star Hilton Hotel in Sydney, meanwhile, was “exploiting people” and forcing those in quarantine to eat “only their meals,” Dr Finlay said.

The images of meals Dr Finlay shared online suggest an abysmal standard of food being served at the hotel, with one picture depicting a meal of wet fries, burnt mushrooms and a single dry lemon.

A returned traveller shared this image of enforced quarantine at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney. Picture: Supplied

In another picture, a resident was allegedly served a single white bread sandwich with what appears to be partially frozen chunks of vegetables.

Another vulnerable woman found out she was approximately 15 weeks pregnant. Due to being on a remote island prior to returning to Australia, she has so far had no antenatal screening and this is her first pregnancy. She had arranged to be seen by an obstetrician in her home city of Hobart but was unable to travel to Tasmania due to strict travel restrictions which meant that, even after completing two weeks isolation in NSW, she and her husband would be required to do the same again in Tasmania.

A meal served to returned travellers in quarantine at the Marriott Hotel at Darling Harbour. Picture: Supplied

Dr Finlay also shared concerns for other quarantined arrivals, including a woman with a newborn baby who he said is a high risk for developing post-natal depression, and an older couple where the husband has dementia.

“They were to be isolated in a hotel despite having a home in Sydney,” he said. “The unfamiliar environment and confinement is likely to result in behavioural disturbances for her husband.”

“I can’t in good conscience sit and wait for the authorities to rectify any of this because there is evidence that they know and still won’t do anything.”

NSW Police, NSW Health and the Hilton Hotel have been contacted for comment.