© Provided by The GuardianPhotograph: Dave Hunt/AAP
Medical experts are raising questions about the speed and consistency of exemptions to cross state borders as Scott Morrison urges state and territory leaders to reopen borders and agree on a consistent framework for movements at national cabinet today.
Reports of a wealthy Melbourne businessman being granted permission to travel by yacht with his family from the coronavirus hotspot to Queensland, and vision of the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, and AFL personalities announcing the Brisbane grand final have been contrasted with the diverting of a northern NSW mother to give birth in Sydney, where one of her unborn twins died.
© Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAPThe Queensland chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners says 'there is some frustration that it's taking a while to make the decisions for border exemptions'.
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The Ballina woman wanted to give birth in Brisbane, but was told by NSW Health officials she would have to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks if she did so.
After consulting specialists at a Sydney hospital, the expectant mother flew there, where one of the twins became anaemic and died during the birth.
While the Queensland health minister, Steven Miles, has rejected claims the state denied her an exemption and said the border rules did not apply to her, another exemption denial emerged this week in which a brain tumour patient, who was returning from surgery in Sydney, was refused permission to quarantine at her sunshine coast home instead of a hotel.
Jeanette Young, Queensland's chief health officer, acknowledged the sheer number of people applying for medical exemptions to enter her state had become "unsustainable". She said she had granted an exemption for the Ballina mother, but only after she had waited 16 hours and flown to Sydney.
A hotline to field medical exemption requests for New South Wales residents needing treatment across the border has since been announced by Palaszczuk.
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Danielle McMullen, the Australian Medical Association NSW president, told the Guardian recent news reports, and feedback from her members, indicated "the Queensland border has been the trickier border" for her state.
She said there had not been as many incidents of urgent medical care being denied across the NSW border with Victoria.
"Queensland have said emergency care shouldn't be affected but there has been a breakdown in communication somewhere," she said. "We've all seen the cases, particularly the mother with her twins, where that process has fallen apart."
She said she knew of hospitals in northern NSW that relied on doctors and nurses who lived in Queensland, and that many had had issues getting to work, leaving them understaffed.
"The status quo is not sustainable," she said.
Bruce Willett, the Queensland chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, told the Guardian "there is some frustration that it's taking a while to make the decisions for border exemptions", both to enter the state, and to be exempt from quarantine.
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"Everyone is doing this for the first time ... and we're seeing some people who have probably slipped through the cracks," he said. "I imagine there is a resources issues here and it probably does need to be fixed with more resources and people."
Willett said a border exemption ombudsman, put in charge of a specific border to judge a rapid appeals process, would be a reasonable idea to ensure consistency between borders and not rely on state health authority delays.
A Queensland Health spokesman told the Guardian it had "received tens of thousands of applications for exemptions to hotel quarantine".
"Our chief health officer's team assesses every application and the timeliness of their response depends on the complexity of each case," he said, "Some applications are more complex than others, including those based on compassionate and medical grounds. Applications such as these are escalated to the chief health officer for assessment."