Melbourne hotel quarantine workers without PPE as cases climb
Victoria’s hotel quarantine program is under further scrutiny after staff have appeared to be working without Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
In vision exclusively obtained by 9News, a resident in hotel quarantine snapped an employee without a mask on.
Jeff Dalton is staying at the Intercontinental on Collins Street and took the photo of the worker today.
“There it was – no mask – and a nurse sitting in her little nurse’s station again not wearing a mask,” he told 9News.
“It doesn’t give me too much confidence.”
The problems do not stop there, with the Park Royal apparently relaxed in its processes as well.
Paul Roache visited the hotel on Sunday, January 24 to drop off supplies to a friend in quarantine.
At no point did they ask me to scan in or ask for ID or QR codes,” he said.
“I was a bit disappointed to say the least.
In the 15 minutes he was there, Paul used the elevator twice to access the Park Royal reception on level four.
“One of the staff members was in a full gown … the lift doors were closing and actually barged in and I had to hold the lift doors open to allow them to come in,” he said.
Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan today defended the state’s system today.
“We’re operating this program under the highest strictest of standards,” she said.
Coronavirus Testing Chief Commander Jeroen Weimar said he would be “disappointed” if hotel quarantine staff were not following protocols.
“I’m sure if that were to be the case there would be very swift actions by my colleagues to deal with that.”
“There are very tight controls about who can come in and out of a hotel quarantine hotel,” he said.
Today authorities confirmed the Holiday Inn cluster had grown to 11 after two spouses of infected workers were confirmed this morning and an assistant manager at the hotel tested positive this afternoon.
Quarantine Victoria have said they take any breaches extremely seriously and they are reviewing CCTV following the allegations in the photo taken.
QCV said the pathology nurse may have been wearing a light pink mask which may not show up in the CCTV.
As to Mr Roache’s story, the hotel quarantine body is adamant no breaches occurred and he was there for about five minutes.
While his name, number and details were not taken, they did know he was coming and his details were stored in a log as a delivery person.
