Ruby Princess kitchen ‘feeds a further fiasco’

The medical company overseeing the cruise ship fiasco allowed meals for its crew to be prepared in the galley for weeks, despite signs the kitchen remained the likely epicentre of infections.

The Ruby Princess in the waters off Wollongong. Picture: Simon Bullard

The private medical company overseeing the Ruby Princess cruise ship fiasco allowed meals for its 1000 crew members to be prepared in the luxury liner’s galley for weeks, despite warning signs that the kitchen remained the likely epicentre of the vessel’s COVID-19 infections.

The Australian has learned Aspen Medical, the independent contractor appointed by the federal government to manage the quarantined ship, allowed food to be prepared on the ship until Saturday, when an order was made to start serving pre-packaged meals taken on to the ship from the shore.

The order was made because of the risk of transmission posed by preparing food in the kitchen, named on Monday by NSW Police Commissioner Michael Fuller as the most likely source of the corona­virus outbreak on the ship.

The fallout from the Ruby Princess continues to ripple around the country, with two Tasmanian hospitals forced to shut down and ­relocate patients because of infections caused by passengers.

“It’s again a reminder that the Ruby Princess is not a NSW problem. It’s a national scandal,” opposition health spokesman Chris Bowen said.

Eighteen passengers who sailed aboard the Ruby Princess have died from COVID-19; more than 600 others have been infected nationally since the vessel docked in Sydney on March 19.

NSW Health authorities revealed on Monday that the latest fatalities included a 74-year-old woman who died at John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle and a 79-year-old man who died at Northern Beaches Hospital in Sydney.

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Mr Fuller said police were working on a theory that the virus was transmitted by a crew member “working in probably the galley, someone who was serving food”.

NSW Health confirmed to The Australian that there have been 19 cases of secondary infection caused by Ruby Princess passengers in the state — these are people who have contracted the virus from those on the ship. Tallied around the country, the number rises to 34 infections.

NSW has also recorded its first tertiary infection from the Ruby Princess, a NSW Health spokeswoman said — tertiary infections refer to people who have contracted the coronavirus without having been in contact with someone on the ship.

Dean Summers, national co-ordinator of the International Transport Workers Federation, which represents seafarers, said the decision to stop serving food from the galley to crew members came far too late, and potentially put their health at greater risk.

He has not been allowed on to the vessel but told The Australian he has been in contact with numer­ous crew members, some of whom had been authorised to speak to him by Carnival Australia. “It’s an absolute shambles,” Mr Summers said. “The galley was ­operational, it was feeding all of the crew, and then Aspen Medical thought it might be a way of spreading it (COVID-19).

“Why wouldn’t you think that on the very first day?”

Currently, 66 crew members have returned positive results, amounting to one in every four of 264 tests conducted.

Testing of these workers has been hard fought. According to Mr Summers, Aspen Medical agreed to test 88 crew members only after protests from the ITWF and the allied Maritime Union of Australia — roughly half the ­results came back positive for COVID-19.

Concerns remain for 800-odd crew members who have not been tested; among them are about 100 seafarers still running the ship as a skeleton crew, delivering food to colleagues locked in cabins, and conducting basic maintenance tasks. Mr Summers said all of them remained at risk of contracting the virus each day they ­remained on the ship.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Monday wide-scale testing was ill-advised ­because the tests were often negative, even in those who had caught the virus.

Aspen Medical, founded by former Australian Defence Force personnel, has worked closely with the Department of Defence, Australian Federal Police and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. According to its website, it has worked in many foreign crisis zones, including Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak.

The company did not respond to a request for comment, and ­neither did the Australian Border Force or DFAT.