Doctor to a nation Brendan Murphy at fever pitch over coronavirus

Brendan Murphy does not have much time to reflect on the critical decisions he’s making in response to the coronavirus crisis.

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, at the Department of Health in Canberra. Picture: Sean Davey.

Brendan Murphy does not have much time to reflect on the critical decisions he’s making in response to the coronavirus crisis.

Since late January, when it ­became clear the outbreak in China’s Hubei province was “really taking off”, the Chief Medical Officer has worked 18-hour days, normally beginning with a query from a minister or one of his state counterparts about 6am.

Dr Murphy, deputy Paul Kelly and the state chief medical officers chief medical officers have made three or four “material” decisions each week, with recommendations to government about border control measures, travel restrictions, protective equipment, flights, quarantining, patient testing, what international data to believe and what messages to communicate.

Many consider Dr Murphy to be the most powerful person in the country at the moment as he ­delivers advice to a government trying to slow the disease’s spread.

There are two things he tries to do each week to maintain his own health: a trip to the gym and a visit from two-year-old granddaughter Anna when he’s home in Melbourne. “I’m trying to spend at least half an hour with my granddaughter on my weekend. My son tends to bring her to me wherever I am because she’s my complete obsession at the moment,” he said.

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Dr Murphy conceded his job in the grip of the coronavirus outbreak had been constant and tiring but he said it was a collective effort with the states and Professor Kelly. While he has become the public face of Australia’s containment plan to contain the coronavirus, Dr Murphy was modest when discussing the influence he held as.

“The Prime Minister’s the most powerful person in the country but I’m pleased to say the Prime Minister is very open to ­receiving medical advice and acts on medical advice he gets,” he said. “Under the Biosecurity Act both in most cases I can compel people to have tests or be detained if they’re a biosecurity risk but we don’t use those powers and we would hope never to use them. People are generally very co-operative.”

With 40 years’ experience in the Australian health system, Dr Murphy is a health bureaucrat with the added bonus of having been a medical researcher and doctor specialising in nephrology (kidneys).

The 64-year-old is married to lawyer Sally Walker, a professor emeritus of Deakin University and the University of Melbourne’s law school. They have two sons, Alex and Ben.

Dr Murphy was responsible for a large metropolitan health service for 11 years as chief executive of Austin Health in Melbourne before becoming Chief Medical Officer in 2016.

He is due to take over as secretary of the Department of Health as soon as next month and is so trusted by Health Minister Greg Hunt he was once left to take answers by himself at a Parliament House press conference as the Minister attended a division in the House of Representatives.

His days are taken up by endless phone calls, meetings and briefings with cabinet ministers, the states, stakeholders, technical experts and even Five Eyes representatives from Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the US.

“I’m finding in a situation like this you see government at its best. You see government wanting to be advised, to take that advice and to act quickly,” Dr Murphy said. “I’ve been regularly briefing the opposition and they’ve been very supportive. I’ve found an absence of politics in this, it’s been a very good thing.”

Though he is not a “very introspective type”, Dr Murphy felt reasonably comfortable he had got the balance right between informing and reassuring the public.

“Life’s so busy that I don’t have much time for reflection. We’re just doing the best we can and moving on to the next issue,” he said.

“This is about trying to reassure the community but also being open and transparent. It’s a difficult balance sometimes to talk about what could be but also what is at the moment and how strong our system is and how well prepared we are.”

Mr Morrison said his government was listening to and acting on “every bit” of Dr Murphy’s advice because he and his team had been planning for an event like this for years.

“Australia has got ahead of coronavirus and we’re staying ahead of it and the expert advice and insight of Brendan Murphy and his team has played a significant role in that,” the Prime Minister said.