Victoria coronavirus lockdown: Toxic Novotel/Ibis Hotel waste warning was ignored

Victoria’s quarantine commissioner insists staff at the Novotel/Ibis hotel — the source of the Delta outbreak — and residents next door don’t share a stairwell and carpark and are at no risk.

Quarantine Victoria Commissioner Emma Cassar says ‘there is no sharing of entries’ between the Novotel/Ibis hotel and residents in apartments next door in Lonsdale St, Melbourne. Picture: Ian Currie

Covid-19 Quarantine Victoria Commissioner Emma Cassar insists Novotel/Ibis hotel staff and apartment residents next door don’t share a stairwell and carpark and are at no risk, despite the revelation on Tuesday that the hotel was the source of the deadly Delta variant outbreak.

Ms Cassar said CQV had ­investigated the allegations from residents of 408 Lonsdale St, which adjoins the Novotel/Ibis hotel, saying it could “confirm there is no sharing of entries with the residents”.

Sarah Paparo is a resident at 408 Lonsdale St. She's irate that residents at her apartment building are being exposed to medical waste, dirty linen and staff from the neighbouring Novotel quarantine hotel. Picture: Aaron Francis

But 408 Lonsdale St resident Sarah Paparo disputed her claim and said she was not surprised the city’s latest coronavirus cluster had been genomically linked to a returned overseas traveller who stayed overnight in the quarantine hotel next to her building while highly infectious.

Just five days earlier, Ms Paparo, 41, had told The Australian of her fears that interactions between staff at the hotel and the more than 450 residents of the ­adjacent apartment complex at 408 Lonsdale St would result in a Covid-19 outbreak.

She highlighted concerns over medical waste and dirty linen ­labelled “terminal/positive cases” which is still being stored in the apartment building’s basement in open yellow bins.

Photographs of the basement show unbagged linen in open bins, contrary to assurances from the government that all linen is double bagged and the outsides of the bags sanitised.

On Tuesday, Ms Paparo said she had grown more concerned in light of the Andrews government’s assertions about the interaction between her building and the quarantine hotel, which she said were “inconsistent with what we are seeing on the ground”.

This picture shows dirty linen that was not double-bagged, contrary to assurances given by Covid-19 Quarantine Victoria Commissioner Emma Cassar.

CCTV of the stairwell used by hotel quarantine staff and residents to exit 408 Lonsdale St via the building’s foyer and mail room and onto Hardware Lane.

“The more we see, the more concerned we get,” said the apartment owner, who chairs the 408 Lonsdale St owners’ corporation.

“Particularly the assertion by the Acting Premier that everything is OK, and the statement (Ms Cassar) made about separate entrances and exits – which, as you have seen, is not the case.”

The Australian was shown the site twice on Tuesday, initially by Ms Cassar and hotel management, and then by Ms Paparo and 408 Lonsdale St management.

At issue is a carpark on the ground floor where medical and food waste and dirty linen from positive cases is stored. While most of the carpark space itself is owned by the hotel, the apartment building has egress rights across the area, and it owns utilities and storage rooms around the edge of the space, to which its employees require regular access.

Of greater concern is the fact that the space connects with a stairwell used daily by dozens of residents, which leads to a carpark on the first floor where hotel staff park their cars, alongside a bike cage and hard rubbish store room accessed by residents.

Further up the stairs is a break room that is regularly accessed by quarantine hotel staff.

The stairwell not only serves as the apartment building’s fire escape but also offers a convenient and well-used “back door” exit out of the apartment building’s main foyer, via the adjacent mail room and through the corner of the staff carpark and hotel bike storage area, to Hardware Lane.

The Novotel/Ibis Hotel in Melbourne. Picture: Paul Jeffers

“The facility next door is in­extricably intertwined with this building,” Ms Paparo said.

“When you need to separate a quarantine facility, it’s just utterly, utterly inappropriate.”

Stills from CCTV footage show staff members wearing scrubs and varying levels of PPE regularly using the stairs, as well as one staff member, in uniform, regularly visiting an apartment on the fourth floor during shift breaks before returning to the hotel.

Nine newspapers reported in May that both the manager and head of infection control at the Novotel/Ibis hotel had been fired the previous month, after reports were lodged detailing 51 incidents in the first four weeks of the quarantine hotel’s operation.

Daily incident reports obtained by The Australian detail a range of reportable conduct, including incidents relating to lifts and stairwells where “red zones” and “green zones” intertwined, putting staff at risk of contracting the coronavirus.

Ms Paparo and building management said they were not aware of any CQV offers to discuss their concerns, and had received no response to a letter sent to the hotel through their lawyers.

Despite this, Acting Premier James Merlino said he was “satisfied” it was safe for the quarantine hotel to continue operating.