Caleb Bond: Governments and health boffins have become so obsessed with the dangers they’ve lost sight of humanity

Inhumane health authorities are obsessed with danger and can’t handle risk, so they treat suffering families like criminals, writes Caleb Bond.

The number of inhumane, heartless, gutless and disgusting things state governments have been allowed to get away with in the name of “keeping us healthy” is astonishing.

When your mother is dying and you desperately want to see her one last time, the last thing you need is health bureaucrats standing in your way.

But that is what is happening on an all-too-frequent basis because of lockdowns and ultra-strict rules that make distressed family members feel like criminals for wanting to be with their sick relatives.

Maria De Petro with her son Joseph and daughter Lina.

As I reported Thursday, Joseph De Petro was flying on a light plane from Adelaide to Melbourne on Tuesday evening when his mother, Maria, died.

He flew from Bangkok, where he lives, on Sunday so he could be with his mother, who was dying of a rare form of blood cancer.

He couldn’t fly directly to Melbourne, so he was forced to choose between Sydney or Adelaide. He made what he thought was the sensible choice of the two. He landed in Adelaide at 8am on Monday.

But, despite Victorian authorities giving him clearance to enter the state on the weekend, SA Health dragged its heels. Joseph sat in hotel quarantine for 36 hours before the approval finally came through – four days after the application was lodged.

With every passing hour, he knew his mother’s health was deteriorating. But there was nothing he could do.

He was on a charter flight as fast as he could get one – but was an hour or so from Melbourne when his mum died. I spent close to an hour on the phone to Joseph on Wednesday. He was understandably distraught – but he couldn’t cry. He’d already done enough of that, he told me.

Instead, he was angry. Upset. Trying to come to terms with the fact that he was so close to saying goodbye to his mother but never got the chance because SA Health was too slow.

A departmental spokesman said there would be an investigation into whether the application could have been assessed sooner. But that’s not the point.

Sure, it could have been. The point is that it shouldhave been. Joseph pleaded his case with medi-hotel staff and they did their best to escalate his application to no avail.

All this is done in the name of making us feel safe and free from coronavirus. But the consequences of that are horrific for people like Joseph. Health bureaucrats left him hurt in one of the most painful moments of his life.

And he’s not the only one.

Domenique Szantyr, who lives in Melbourne, last year wanted to see her dying mother in Adelaide.

Domenique Szantyr, 35, and son Lachlan, 2, are trying to get to South Australia to her terminally ill mother. Picture: Jason Edwards

Her mum had stage four breast cancer that had spread to her lungs, bones and brain. She applied for a compassionate exemption to enter South Australia and was knocked back without explanation.

Victoria recently denied entry to Katrina Anderson, who had applied to come from NSW to care for her daughter who has aggressive breast cancer.

She was happy to comply with any and all requirements – including two weeks of hotel quarantine at her own expense.

The same treatment was given to Zoe Bagnato – a single, unemployed mother from Sydney who couldn’t afford her rent so applied to isolate on her parents’ remote East Gippsland property in Victoria. Denied. And now she is living in a caravan park.

I could go on. Unfortunately, examples abound.

Governments and health boffins have become so obsessed with the dangers of coronavirus that they have lost sight of why they did all this in the first place – in the name of humanity.

In these decisions, they show no humanity at all. It is cruel and reprehensible.

Governments have given the middle finger to grieving relatives on the slightest chance they might be carrying coronavirus.

It is yet another example of physical health being prioritised above all else – particularly mental health.

We will look back on this in a decade and wonder how we could have been so inhumane.

Originally published as Caleb Bond: Governments and health boffins have become so obsessed with the dangers they’ve lost sight of humanity