Coronavirus Victoria inquiry: On the ‘crazy floor’, people were going nuts

Security guards at a Melbourne hotel may have let Covid escape after becoming overwhelmed by hysterical guests.

Corrections officers who arrived in July after quarantine bungles at the Rydges hotel in Carlton, Melbourne. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Poorly trained security guards on a so-called “crazy floor” of the Rydges Hotel in Melbourne’s Swanston Street may have let COVID-19 escape into the community, after they became overwhelmed by hysterical guests who were screaming, crying and banging on walls, begging to be let out.

This week’s independent inquiry into the spread of the virus is expected to hear evidence that guests were begging, pleading and even offering money to security guards for a cigarette, a lighter, Valium or a breath of fresh air.

Many of those travellers, especially in the early days of the virus, were infectious, and the guards seemed unable to control them, with mental health professionals eventually called in.

The inquiry will hear that guards in one case struggled to handle a distraught women who collapsed and cried in the hotel hallway before making a bolt for the door, insisting on her need to “breathe”.

The Rydges Hotel was one of the first to take quarantine travellers, and one of the first to have a major virus breakout.

A guest of Rydges, released from the hotel after returning from Europe in April, has told The Australian he had been put on what guards described as the “crazy floor” of his hotel, “with people going absolutely nuts”.

“They had mental health ­people coming to sedate them,” said the guest, who asked not to be named. “They were asking for Valium, for sleeping pills.

“They were begging to be let out and running for the doors.”

The Victorian government was alone among the states in deciding to engage private security firms to manage hotel quarantine. By contrast, NSW relied on police officers, who are far more experienced at handling civilians under stress.

The guest told The Australian that the guards seem ill-equipped to handle people “who were coming off flights after 60 hours on the go, who wanted a cigarette, wanted fresh air, wanted to go home and see their family.

“And they were being told no, but the guards had no real authority … they gave the impression they could be talked around. And guests were going up to the security guards, begging and offering money to be let out. It was insane.”

More than 20 security guards, relatives and other contacts tested positive after coming into contact with guests at the 107-room ­Rydges Hotel.

There were outbreaks at the Stamford Plaza in Little Collins Street, too.

The emotional state of many quarantined travellers across Australia can be gleaned from the many posts still appearing on the “Hotel Quarantine” pages on Facebook.

One guest, from a hotel outside Victoria, admitting making “constant calls to reception” to get permission for fresh-air breaks.

“Tonight, I called reception at 10pm to get out for a break, they reply ‘Yes, I will put you on the list’ — I waited and waited for 15mins to get escorted out; still no-one, 10:15, 10:30, 10:45, I called.

“The officer only came to take me at 10:50pm which only gave me 10mins for fresh air.”

This break was permitted, under the program’s rules.

Others advised fellow guests to “lose your shit, cry” in order to get outside.

The pressure on others is apparent from their posts, with one saying: “I lost my shit on day 10. No amount of someone telling me that it was ‘going to be fine’ would comfort me.”

Another said they were “mentally broken” by the experience.

“The only thing we asked (pleaded) for when we arrived, was access to a mental health professional, and we were empathetically (convincingly) promised this,” she wrote.

“By the second day, still with no mental health support, which I naively assumed you would have ready for us the moment we arrived, or prescription medication that we had requested, our mental state had deteriorated further.

“By the third day, my partner was screaming — I mean, SCREAMING — for help, sobbing uncontrollably and wailing that she just wanted to die.”

An “imposing police officer” arrived to tell them to shut up.

Another guest of Rydges has complained directly to the Victorian government COVID-19 inquiry about the risk of transmission between guests.

Christine Joan Cocks says in a submission that she “was in quarantine in Rydges on Swanston from 12 April to 27 April, 2020” after returning from Uruguay.

“Issues of cleanliness concerned my husband and I,” she said. “We are both healthcare workers. The carpet was dirty. Quite a few in our cohort asked for a vacuum cleaner.

“ Of concern to us was how the vacuum cleaner was transferred from room to room.

“I do not think it was cleaned between transfers. A fair percentage of our cohort had tested COVID positive.”

She said guests were not expected to remove mattress toppers when stripping their own linen, upon leaving the hotel.

“We cannot believe this. How disgusting. What a great way to spread a virus. We double-bagged all waste within our room, but it was collected like that from our door. The first bag should have been put into the second bag held by a PPE-protected staff member, to ensure the outside of that bag was not contaminated.”

She also witnessed eight staff coming for their shift in just two cars. “I think it is unfair to just point a finger at the security staff at the hotel because, to us, the most likely weakness was how potential contaminants were managed by the hotel,” she said.

“Quarantine should only be managed by people well-trained in handling of contaminants.”

Public hearings of the inquiry begin on Thursday.

Topics to be examined include the nature of COVID-19; infection control; epidemiology and contact tracing; and genomic testing. The report is due on September 23, after the Victorian lockdown ends.