Medical emergency leaves Victorian family stranded in NSW after failing to qualify for border exemption
Vic family stranded 1000km from home amid medical emergency want to know why they don’t qualify for a border exemption.
One Melbourne man’s pre-Christmas adventure which started out as a “a bit of fun” turned into an emergency trip to the intensive care unit in NSW, leaving his Victorian family stranded nearly 1000km from home after rushing across the border amid fears he could die alone.
Cherie Warren-Smith and her 15-year-old son — who live in Canterbury in Melbourne’s east — have been stuck in Gosford on the NSW Central Coast for three weeks after her Dad, Denis Dwyer, slipped on some stairs at a hotel and fractured some of his ribs on December 12.
“The doctor said I should come … because they pretty much thought he was going to die,” the 52-year-old said.
“We don’t have any family or friends or anything up here so he would have been all on his own which would have been really awful,” she said.
While her Dad survived the night after she arrived on December 14, he has remained in the ICU for three weeks and was back in a critical condition on Thursday.
Ms Warren-Smith said she hoped he would improve enough to allow her to transfer him to a Melbourne hospital after staying in five different hotels with hardly any clothes, but Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services advised her she did not qualify for a border exemption.
“The first time we tried (to call DHHS) my partner rang and they said … it was pretty impossible to get an exemption and our best bet would be to go to a border town like a green zone and stay there for 14 days and then cross the border,” she said.
“Then I rang them again this Tuesday and they did listen to my story and they said that they would pass it on to the next level where they ring you back and tell you what they need but I haven’t heard back yet.”
It came after Victorian authorities on Thursday revealed more than 4000 stranded residents from the state had applied for exemptions to be allowed to travel home.
Ms Warren-Smith said she would have travelled to be with her dad regardless of the border closure, but just wanted some clarity about why she was told she could not apply for an exemption.
“No matter what, even if I knew that I was going to be locked up here, I still would have come because it’s my dad and he was going to die … I don’t think that would change my choice to come up,” she said.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have brought my son might but it’s really hard when you have to act really quickly … all you are thinking about is dad’s going to die and you need to get there.
“It would be good to know what to do and that it will happen.”
Ms Warren-Smith also has another son, a 19-year-old, who stayed at their family home in Melbourne.
“(He) is really missing us too and he asks when are you coming home but I can’t say because I don’t know,” she said.
“I would like to get us home. I‘m a mum and I just worry … I want my sons to be okay and I want everyone’s mental health to be good but it’s hard. I just feel a flat and not knowing what is happening — that’s not great.”
Ms Warren-Smith said her dad was due to return to Melbourne on December 20.
She said she flew to Gosford from Melbourne and could chose from what felt like “thousands” of flights before it was announced on New Year’s Eve borders would close to anyone coming from NSW on January 1.
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