Hotel quarantine infection chief Matiu Bush’s motto: why not take more risks?
Matiu Bush criticised the health sector’s risk-averse approach to infection control.
Stood-down quarantine hotel infection boss Matiu Bush criticised the healthcare sector for taking a risk-averse approach to infection control in the year before he was appointed to manage infection prevention at Melbourne’s COVID-19 hotels by the Andrews government.
Mr Bush was stood down by the government after The Australian publicly revealed he had been reported to authorities twice since March after refusing a Defence Force request for a mandatory COVID-19 test and breaching infection control protocols.
Acting Victorian Premier James Merlino refused to apologise to a man who used a nebuliser in quarantine and was blamed for the Holiday Inn outbreak even after The Australian revealed a secret report into the hotel outbreak had found the virus first escaped into a corridor during lengthy swabbing of an unmasked woman in an open doorway, not from the man’s room as had been claimed by health officials.
While the Victorian opposition labelled the scapegoating of the man as an “absolute disgrace”, he told Melbourne’s 3AW: “I am very glad this has come out, though it continues to show there’s systemic problems that need to be resolved.”
COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria commander Emma Cassar said on Wednesday the government’s “working hypothesis” remained that the outbreak that sparked February’s lockdown was caused by use of a nebuliser.
The Australian obtained dozens of daily confidential reports spanning January to April that documented an array of breaches and incidents, including how unvaccinated contractors had been allowed to perform hotel maintenance work, a nurse tried to give a returned traveller a banned nebuliser and a frontline medical officer vaped inside a quarantine hotel.
In a 2019 interview about his charity One Good Street, Mr Bush talked about the use of the slogan “#f.ckrisk”, and the neighbourhood charity’s approach to accepting donations of used medical equipment and supplies.
Asked by the interviewer to explain “f.ckrisk”, he said: “#f.ckrisk. It highlights that in healthcare we have become obsessed with risk and in doing so stifled creativity.
“There is a very legitimate role in ensuring safety and standardisation and management of risk absolutely but often those individuals come and put a full stop on things.”
He said “it is human nature to focus on the worst-case scenario but we are bringing that back”.
“We found this often when people wanted to donate equipment to us so when someone said ‘I have a scooter or an electric wheelchair or a whole lot of supplies, dressing supplies’, and hospitals said ‘Don’t touch it’, infection control risk, etc, even though the evidence actually says an unopened packet of equipment in a house is no risk.
“But all of that goes into the bin, all of that goes into landfill.
“It is crazy. There are people who can’t afford it (equipment) and when you are funded by the government, the cruel math is do I have a shower and do I have my house cleaned or do I save for a piece of equipment?”
It is believed the government will conduct a review over four weeks, with Mr Bush remaining on full pay while he is stood down.
The Australian can also reveal that Mr Bush told staff in December last year that a senior manager had to leave her previous job managing infection prevention at a Melbourne hospital after it was hit by a COVID outbreak.
On December 27, 2020, Mr Bush initiated a discussion on the IPC All Staff WhatsApp group about the senior manager, asking if anyone had worked with her.
He told colleagues he had heard the woman managed IPC at a hospital during a “recent outbreak and hence no longer works there”.
He subsequently confirmed the senior manager was to be appointed.
His comments sparked criticism by IPC staff of the senior manager’s handling of the outbreak and the decision to appoint her to the new position. One staffer writes she was “horrified with what I saw” at the network where the outbreak occurred.
The state government had initially maintained that counselling of Mr Bush was an adequate response to his conduct but took tougher action when The Australian disclosed his behaviour as part of an special investigation into Victoria’s hotel quarantine program on Wednesday.
Acting Minister in Charge of Hotel Quarantine Danny Pearson said: “That’s not what I expect from a senior leader, a senior manager with CQV, and that’s why I felt the most appropriate thing to do was for Mr Bush to be stood down pending that review. because we want to make sure we set the right standards right from the top.”
In response to detailed questions about Mr Bush’s comments in 2019 and his WhatsApp comments, a COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria spokesperson said last night: “The IPC general manager has been stood down pending a review into their conduct.”
