Today’s hotel quarantine inquiry heard phone calls to check on the welfare of returned travellers were conducted by travel agents without clinical training.
In addition, Authorised Officers in hotel quarantine included officers from a range of departments and agencies with little if any clinical health experience. Nor did these Authorised Officers receive formal program specific training before commencing work on the ground at hotels.
This merely adds to the growing scandal surrounding private security guards the Andrews Labor Government hired to be on the frontline of hotel quarantine.
Today it’s also been reported guards were allegedly caught engaged in sexual activity while working in hotel quarantine. Serious allegations also emerged that guards sexually harassed and intimidated female colleagues.
Time and time again we’ve seen the Andrews Labor Government put the wrong people, with the wrong skillset in roles that were crucial to keeping Victorians safe.
Comments attributable to Shadow Minister for Health, Georgie Crozier:
“Daniel Andrews let coronavirus out the front door of hotel quarantine and into the community, causing Victoria’s devastating second wave.
“Mental health care nurses should have been making every single welfare call to return travellers. The decision by the Andrews Labor Government to put unskilled travel agents in that role is just mind boggling.”
Comments attributable to Shadow Attorney-General, Edward O’Donohue:
“Victorians are in the current oppressive lockdown regime because of the hotel quarantine failures.
“Every day further damning evidence comes to light about the abject failures, mismanagement and negligence of the Andrews Labor Government’s hotel quarantine program.”
