Coronavirus: Nobody thought they were in charge of hotel quarantine

Health officers critical to the oversight of Victoria’s hotel quarantine scheme received just one hour of online training.

The Pan Pacific Hotel in Melbourne. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Health officers critical to the oversight of Victoria’s hotel quarantine scheme received just one hour of online training, despite state legislation stating they must be suitably qualified and trained, in a move slammed as a “fundamental failure of governance”.

In a final submission to the hotel quarantine inquiry, Wilson Security said it was told by the Jobs Department that authorised officers from the Department of Health and Human Services were in charge on site but, “remarkably”, the officers did not see that as their role.

“The evidence before the board demonstrates clearly that nobody within government considered themselves in charge of quarantine and infection control on site,” the company said.

Victoria’s Public Health and Wellbeing Act states the DHHS secretary must not appoint a person to be an authorised officer unless satisfied the person is suitably qualified or trained to be an authorised officer.

The submission emerged after the Andrews government was rocked by the resignation of the state’s top bureaucrat, Chris ­Eccles.

Luke Ashford, a Park Victoria ranger appointed as an authorised officer by DHHS, has given evidence to the inquiry he did not receive specialist training and was required to do only a one-hour training session on using the department’s COVID-19 app and a one-hour session on equity and diversity.

When he arrived for his first shift at the Pan Pacific Hotel on May 25, he said he had “no clue about what I would be doing”, was given a draft quarantine procedure document that was constantly revised, and received no proper training in using personal protective equipment.

Wilson Security noted that one hour of online training to use the COVID-19 app was considered sufficient to come to the conclusion that Mr Ashford was “suitably qualified or trained”.

“This is a fundamental failure of governance on the part of the state, the consequence of which resulted in operational inconsistency, uncertainty and an unacceptable exposure of risk to those working within the program,” it said. “That operational inconsistency and uncertainty was not only across hotel sites, but also at a single hotel site.

“This was a result of different government personnel having different views and therefore making inconsistent decisions.”

Wilson said it was not until June 22, three months into the scheme and after the Rydges and Stamford outbreaks, that DHHS staff met with the company to discuss Wilson’s infection control and prevention arrangements at the hotels.

According to Wilson, this was the first time DHHS became aware Wilson Security had established infection screening procedures for all security personnel, including temperature testing and health and safety declarations. “DHHS informed Wilson Security of its intention to introduce similar procedures across the program and, for the first time, asked Wilson Security to share information about its infection prevention and control framework,” the company said.

In its submission, Wilson said none of the security staff stationed at the quarantine hotels contracted COVID-19, nor was there an outbreak from any of the hotels. “Wilson Security only received infection prevention and control guidelines on 29 May, 2020, some eight weeks into its commencement in the hotel quarantine program,” it said.

“Those guidelines did not require security guards to wear masks or use PPE where they could maintain physical distancing from returned travellers.

“That guidance proved to be inadequate, but for Wilson Security this was at least inconsequential, as it already had in hand a full framework of training, supervision, incident escalation and temperature and health checks for its guards.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Unified Security denied getting advance notice about the quarantine scheme after documents showed it emailed staff at 12.36pm on March 27 about obtaining infection control training. “This decision preceded and was in no way informed by any discussion or decisions by any government about hotel quarantine,” it said