Australia's second coronavirus wave: what went wrong in Victoria | Four Corners

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments

Reader's digest version:

Everything went wrong.

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/L-Z-1 📅︎︎ Aug 17 2020 🗫︎ replies

A baby shower?

Are you fucking kidding me.

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/BrianQQ 📅︎︎ Aug 17 2020 🗫︎ replies

What a dogs breakfast of a mess!

With that level of incompetence, it is amazing that there are still people in Victoria that haven't caught the virus....

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/netsheriff 📅︎︎ Aug 17 2020 🗫︎ replies

Was disappointed that they did not pursue the security providers (Wilson et al).

What was the value of the contracts and how much profit was taken?

It would be easy to gestimate the order of magnitude if basic stats were available.

Value of contract/Number of Guards @ $29/hr and hours worked/Management Overhead to find how much was creamed off. (Probably in the order of 60% of contract value)

Also any "ghosting" where the number of claimed guards was a lot less than the actual guards working, a well worn rort in these "services"!

Focussing on the guards so much was a crock.

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/mrflibble4747 📅︎︎ Aug 17 2020 🗫︎ replies

Anyone else find it odd that this isn’t on r/Australia?

I would have thought that this met their criteria for important Australia related topics, rather than something like

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/ibbkln/is_bark_from_a_gum_tree_edible/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/SoecialK 📅︎︎ Aug 17 2020 🗫︎ replies

Worth watching? Anything we didn't already know?

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/porcupinetears 📅︎︎ Aug 17 2020 🗫︎ replies
Captions
WOMAN: I think we were the poster country along with New Zealand. We were doing brilliantly well. The Australian public were highly cooperative. They were doing very well. Thank you. REPORTER: For months, Australia was the envy of the world in suppressing COVID-19. WOMAN: Until the latest resurgence in Victoria, Australia's success was really phenomenal. Now one state is threatening the health of the entire nation. MALE REPORTER: How would you characterise Victoria's public health response to this pandemic? Well, it's been inadequate, clearly. WOMAN: When we heard that one of the security guards had tested positive, the reaction from both of us was, "Well, I'm not surprised." In Victoria, coronavirus infections exploded in a second wave far worse than the first. WOMAN: Every day, we're getting notifications saying, "My father's died." "My mother's died." "My grandmother's died." And this is gonna go on and on. WOMAN: I never thought I'd not be able to say goodbye or at least hold her hand through it. Doing it through a video call, is not something that I ever imagined. Tonight on Four Corners, we examine what went wrong in Victoria and how coronavirus infections spiralled out of control. And we investigate the failings of authorities that are supposed to keep the community safe, but instead have put the entire nation at risk. STEPHANIE MARCH: At the end of March, the COVID-19 pandemic was raging around the world. In Australia, the number of cases was rapidly rising. The Ruby Princess cruise ship had arrived in Sydney, delivering hundreds of cases of deadly coronavirus to the nation's door. It was clear the greatest threat was people returning from abroad. WOMAN: Australia was on a knife edge at the end of March. We had a peak in cases. They were mostly about 65% imported cases through overseas travel. But it was a very, um... very precarious situation that could have gone either way. To curb the spread, return travellers had been ordered to go home and self-isolate for 14 days. But the nation's leaders decided that wasn't enough to stem transmission. SCOTT MORRISON: So, by no later than midnight tomorrow, that's 11:59pm Saturday, states and territories will be quarantining all arrivals through our airports in hotels and other accommodation facilities for the two weeks of their mandatory self-isolation before they are able to return to their home. Hotel quarantine was to be the barrier to stop the virus spreading. PROF MacINTYRE: Yeah, the hotel quarantine was a smart move because there were instances before that where people were breaching the home quarantine. So, you know, we can't rely on everyone to do the right thing. People will breach those orders. So, the hotel quarantine puts one extra layer of security in there. In this war against the virus, the Federal Government offered the help of the Defence Force, but it was up to each state and territory to decide who would run their hotel quarantine program. The New South Wales Government put the police in charge. MAN: We're not getting the sort of compliance that I feel we need, and that's why it's important tonight we really switch over to a much more controlled, police-style operation. And again, I acknowledge some people won't be happy with that, but I truly believe this will bring an end to this much, much quicker than just relying on individuals. In Victoria, several government departments were responsible for the hotel quarantine program, but it's not clear who was in charge. Private security companies were hired to guard the hotels. MAN: My personal view of why it was contracted out is because it was cheaper. They engaged these big national companies to provide private security, and they allowed these big national companies then to subcontract out. Because you've gotta remember the entire cost of security is people, workers who actually have to physically stand there and make certain that the facility is secure. And so any way that these big companies can maximise their profit, they will. Among the hotels used was Rydges on Swanston. One of the first groups to arrive were passengers from the Greg Mortimer cruise ship who'd been at sea for two weeks off the coast of Uruguay. Dozens of them had tested positive for COVID-19, including Queensland oncology nurse Christine Cocks, an expert in infection control. WOMAN: Everyone that came off that vessel into Rydges understood the importance of two weeks in quarantine and the reason that we were doing it was to protect Australia, that we were, in reality, the sterile barrier between potential COVID infection and the rest of our country. And we were only too happy to do that. When the passengers got to their rooms, they were horrified to find conditions that were far from sterile. When we arrived in our room and saw the fine layer of dust across the top of the bar and the shelves there, and the dirty table, the dirty desk, we had a feeling that things might not have been as clean as we were expecting and that the handling of the whole situation might not be up to what it should have been. Some people had stains on their sheets, as if the sheets were dirty. There were a couple of rooms that had bedbugs. Another person said that there was faeces in the toilet that hadn't been flushed and urine splattered on the floor around the toilet that she had to clean. Security guards were posted on each floor to make sure the guests didn't leave. Christine was worried about the guards' potential exposure to the virus. The guards that didn't have their gowns on would be wearing gloves and masks, but that doesn't necessarily protect you. If you rub your face with a gloved hand and then, after the glove is off, you scratch again, put it in your mouth, near your nose, you're away. There goes your infection. And it takes a mindset and an education to understand the nuances of non-transfer of pathogens. The Health Department placed government officials in each hotel to oversee operations. The Department of Jobs contracted three large security companies - Wilson Security, MSS and Unified - to provide guards to more than a dozen hotels. TIM KENNEDY: This is a system that's been adopted by governments, both Federal and State, for 30 to 40 years. And it's been based on the fact that the private sector is more efficient and proficient. And what this health crisis has shown us is that they're neither. They're very good at extracting profit and moving risk onto individual workers. What the pandemic has shown us is they've moved risk not only onto individual workers, they've moved the risk onto all of us, and now we're all paying the price of this COVID pandemic. The Andrews Government had known about problems with underpayment, competency and subcontracting in the private security industry long before it hired them for this highly sensitive task. MAN: What's actually quite disconcerting is that the Department of Justice of Victoria had launched a review of the security industry and they started to really look into it quite thoroughly. What's really terrible is that the signs were there and that should have been addressed, not only by the Andrew Government, but all the State Governments and the Federal Government probably before that. So the red flags were there? Yes, the red flags were definitely there, and there were ongoing inquiries about it. The three companies were allowed to subcontract to smaller operators. TIM KENNEDY: A number of guards who had been members of the union came forward to some of our organisers and they indicated that they'd actually procured work through social platforms. They weren't told where they were working. They weren't told, essentially, what it was about until they turned up. They were given perfunctory documents to tick and flick, and generally directed to go stand on a floor and don't let anyone move. No PPE, no proper training. And it's a feature of this sector where there is a lot of subcontracting. Peter was one of the security guards who worked at a quarantine hotel. He still works in the security industry, so he doesn't want to reveal his identity. Well, my mate, he knew someone else. They were looking for the guards. He sent me a text message, "Oh, you wanna do some work?" I said, "Sure." He said, "You get $29 an hour." Said, "That's fine." And he gave me one number. I called the number. And he text me, or WhatsApp me, later on, "Are you available to work tomorrow?" I said, "Yes." He said, "You got a business suit?" I said, "Yes." That's how I got a job. He was told to arrive for his shift at the Novotel on Collins at 6:00am. I wasn't know what I was doing, to be honest. And the guys... I asked a guy, "What do you want me to do?" He said, "Just follow the guards who worked there before." So, just went to sign in. And they said go to Level 12 for my role. So, I went to 12. Asked a couple of guards, who said, "Just sit on the corner." That's it. What sort of training did they give you before you started? Nothing. Not even a single thing about COVID. All I know about the COVID is from television, not from the security. Got no training whatsoever. And did you have any protective gear, face mask or anything? Yes, they provide one face mask per shift. One? One per shift. How long is a shift? One shift? For 12 hours with one mask. Four Corners has obtained images of guards employed under Unified Security asleep on the job while working at a quarantine hotel. The company says the guards were fired. (MAN SNORES) Peter also worked under Unified through a subcontractor. From the beginning, he was alarmed at the conditions at the hotel. The things in the corridor was not acceptable. Acceptable means there's only two feet difference between us and the guests who were walking through the corridors, who arrived from international, that want to go to their rooms. So, there is not much social distancing, no proper training. I have a family waiting for me at home. I don't wanna pass this disease to them. And so, did you have a break? I do get a break. I go to the 7-Eleven for the coffee, that's all. So, you walked from the hotel down to the 7-Eleven? Yes. And when you went on your break, did you take your mask off? Yes, I did. And you put it back on? Yes. The same mask? Same mask. Doesn't sound very safe. Well, there is not much options, then. We know that healthcare workers are very meticulous, and even they can make mistakes. These aren't healthcare workers. Taking off your personal protective equipment is one of the most dangerous moments. So, are they good at that? But do they understand how psychopathic this virus is, that all they have to do is do one small thing that's wrong and they could then acquire it? CHRISTINE COCKS: We're fairly certain that the guards didn't have the level of understanding. From our window, we could watch them arrive at six o'clock in the morning. Two cars, eight guards, would all get out to start their shift. And, I mean, that would've been the first thing that you would've stopped, that they would be travelling in a car together to come to work. Unified insists all guards were required to do online and face-to-face infection control training. But Four Corners has talked to multiple guards who say this wasn't provided. If the government decided to put the guards on the line, they should have proper plan. OK, you're gonna provide the training. What sort of training? Not a video training, not online training. One-to-one training for a couple of days before the guards go onto the job. That should be paid training as well. Well, the security industry doesn't work like that. There is no paid training. By mid-April, the Australian Medical Association in Victoria was getting reports from members working in hospitals and the quarantine hotels about problems. MAN: The first problem was the breakdown in infection control in the hotel quarantine arrangements. And clearly the department wasn't really, perhaps, as conscious of the need to have the proper infection control protocols around the security personnel. And we really needed to have someone checking the compliance of their behaviours to make sure that they followed the right processes. They were also concerned about travel arrangements. Well, I was hearing from frontline emergency staff that they had concerns about the arrangements for transport of positive patients from the quarantine hotels who were getting medical checks at the emergency rooms. And so, the concern they had was about the transfer arrangements. Often they could be transferred in the appropriate ambulance, but would need to find their own way back to the hotels themselves. And that would obviously either involve either a taxi, an Uber or even prevailing upon family members. So, catching Ubers from the hospital back to the hotel. Correct. Why is that a problem? Well, because of the obvious potential for cross-infection to the drivers and to other people in the community. Four Corners can reveal the AMA wrote to the state's health department, giving detailed instructions on how it believed the quarantine program should operate. We had a whole host of concerns around how the hotel quarantine system was being managed in terms of resourcing and also in terms of the protocols being used, of which infection control was one of the issues we raised. And we were obviously disappointed that those suggestions, given in good faith, were not subsequently followed. On May 26th, the hotel quarantine barrier was breached. A worker at Rydges tested positive for COVID-19. Four Corners has established it was a hotel staff member who'd been working in the lobby. The next day, a security guard at the same hotel tested positive, followed by four more guards. I wasn't surprised. The way they was running, they're running very awful. It's like live bacteria inside the rooms, in the labs. And people who are there, aren't with proper equipment. So what are you going to expect? And most of people who are working there they've got another jobs. They're working from one hotel to another hotel. Someone else was driving Ubers or cabs. So I wasn't surprised we are at this stage now. When we heard that the guard, one of the security guards, had tested positive, the reaction from both of us was, "Well, I'm not surprised." I don't think any one person or group can be singled out as being responsible for the spread of COVID that started in Rydges. I think it's a whole maze of issues where everything has just lined up to allow this to happen. When I saw the first case in the hotel quarantine, I... That was a real red alert. What would have helped, in hindsight, is experts in infection prevention and outbreak looking at how things could evolve even if it... It could have occurred in the lunchroom, for example. At the time, it should have triggered the suspicion that there could be a chain of transmission in the community linked to that breach. And you have to sort of expand the testing and really look hard for cases within the time frame of the incubation period, which did happen, eventually, by June. But perhaps some earlier contact tracing might have revealed more...more cases. The virus was quietly spreading. PROF McLAWS: I'd been stalking the data for a long time and I was watching the numbers go up. And I saw at the end of May things were, in Victoria and Melbourne specifically, they couldn't get the numbers down to single figures over a 14-day period, which meant that there was no wriggle room for human resourcing to go out and find everybody that needed to be found. And also with the geo... ..exponential rate of spread, it would mean that it could spread quite rapidly, which it did. Despite the risk, in June, Victoria lifted some lockdown restrictions. Up to 20 people were allowed to attend restaurants or family gatherings. PROF MacINTYRE: Anywhere in the world, wherever you are, when you start lifting restrictions, you'll get more transmission of infection. We're in the middle of a pandemic. It's the worst pandemic in living memory. And there's a huge number of cases overseas. Our borders are not completely shut. So as soon as you lift restrictions, you'll start to see transmission increasing and cases increasing. On June 17th, a guard working under MSS Security in another quarantine hotel, The Stamford Plaza, tested positive for COVID-19. Two days later, five more guards from that same hotel tested positive. WOMAN: There's been some closer mingling of these guards than we would like in the workplace. There's a large cohort of security guards and other workers, and unfortunately it does appear that quite a few of them have worked for single or multiple days whilst infectious. So we do expect that there are quite possibly going to be further cases linked to that outbreak. PAT: What did you think when there was the outbreak at the second hotel? What were your thoughts at that point? Well, I was very concerned that we were going to find escalating levels of community transmission, because I was aware, of course, that many of these people who were employed in security, of course, are on a minimum wage. They also had a number of different types of jobs in the community. And as a result of that, they would be moving freely through different types of workplaces. By June 20, the daily number of new cases hit a two-month high. Premier Daniel Andrews said family gatherings in breach of COVID-19 restrictions were largely responsible. It is pretty clear that behind closed doors, when one family comes together in large numbers and potentially goes and visits another family, they...they are not practising social distancing. They are not in a controlled environment. Now, this is not about blame. It's not about those sorts of issues. They are the facts of the matter and Victorians are entitled to know that that's what's driving about half the new cases - transmission within families, transmission from one family to another, as a kind of extended family, if you like. Tonight - are we lurching towards another lockdown? Victoria records 75 new cases of coronavirus. By the end of June, the virus was spreading out of control. Clusters were popping up across Melbourne and growing. There were nearly 300 cases where authorities didn't know the source of transmission. Daniel Andrews revealed that hotel quarantine breaches were to blame for many new infections. This morning, I received the most comprehensive genomics briefing that I have received throughout the pandemic. And what that briefing provided and put to me very clearly is that at least a significant number, and potentially more, of the outbreaks in the north of the city are attributable, via genomic sequencing, to staff members in hotel quarantine breaching well known and well understood infection-control protocols. That is unacceptable to me. PAT: Do you think guards, individual guards like you, have been unfairly blamed for what's happened? Of course. It's always get blame who are the bottom. Do you reckon the government should not done the first thing? They know they should do a proper assessment. This is a deadly virus. They had a live example in Europe, Asia. They know what was happening. And they still hire private guards? STEPHANIE: Premier Andrews called an inquiry into the hotel quarantine debacle. Look, there's an inquiry that's upcoming. That is not... I have not been involved in it. I think it's entirely appropriate that the judicial inquiry goes to all of the issues that might be at play here. PAT: So, how would you characterise Victoria's public health response to this pandemic? Well, it's been inadequate, clearly. And the reason that that's been the case is because it's been woefully under-resourced. And compared to other states, it's just a fraction of the resources that they've deployed. STEPHANIE: The AMA says the Victorian Health Department has been weakened by years of budget cuts and restructuring. I think we've known for many years that the, particularly public health, tends to be underfunded and under-resourced in Victoria. And also the Department of Health and Human Services, which was formed in 2015, really has what I would call a dysfunctional and Byzantine organisational architecture. So that this has kind of given rise to, I think, the situation we've seen here. As the clusters grew and spread, the Premier locked down the worst-affected suburbs. DAN ANDREWS: This is what we must do now. If we do not do this now, then I won't be locking down 10 postcodes, I will be locking down all postcodes. And I can't do this, the government cannot do this on our own. We need every Victorian to play their part. One of the biggest clusters, which grew to nearly 200 cases, began at the Al-Taqwa school in Truganina in Melbourne's outer west. MAN: On Monday, I think it must have been 29 June that we got a text message from Al-Taqwa saying that a staff member had tested positive. At that stage, there was no clear instruction as to, you know, which students or grades actually has been affected. A couple of days later, we got a text message from Department of Health saying that one of my child who goes to Al-Taqwa, 12-year-old, she's Year 7, was a close contact, she needs to self isolate at home. The Al-Taqwa cluster was linked to Victoria's biggest outbreak at public housing towers in Melbourne's inner north. DAN ANDREWS: The public health advice is to close those nine towers. There will be no reason for any of those residents to leave their home for a period of at least five days, effective immediately. SHAZELI OSMAN: I know for sure that I've got friends also who live in that housing estate, and I really, truly felt for them. Theatre nurse Shazeli Osman, whose daughters caught COVID-19, worried that many in his community were reluctant to get tested. There's a huge stigma out there within the community, the fear. The fear within the community that, you know, if we get tested, you know, how we're gonna be even more marginalised, we're gonna be even more discriminated. Then there are the issues where a lot of self-employed people actually, you know, if we get locked down, how are we going to pay our mortgage? How are we gonna actually sustain our families? You know, the handout from the government is not gonna be enough. These kinds of fear. Thanks very much for joining us. We have 5,165 cases of coronavirus in Victoria. That is 428 new cases since we last updated you. As the number of new cases climbed, the state's contact tracing system was failing to keep up. PROF MacINTYRE: The two most important things to stopping the spread is one, finding all the cases so that they can't infect other people, isolating them and treating them. And secondly, tracking all of their contacts and putting them in quarantine for two weeks, which is the incubation period. You need skilled contact tracers, public health people who can identify all the contacts, follow them up, call them, get all the information they need. Keep following them up in the two-week period and then activate a plan if those people develop symptoms, if they need to be tested, et cetera. There are multiple accounts of the contact tracing system's dysfunction. In July, healthcare worker Kerry Sheperd was told by the Health Department her COVID test was negative and she went back to work. The next day she got an alarming message. Then I saw that there were three missed calls and a text message saying, "This is from Department of Health. "You've tested positive "and you've missed our attempts at contacting you, "but you are required to quarantine." There was a moment of, "Oh, no, I've gone to work. "I've interacted with everybody." Fridays are our busiest day by far in the clinic. So, all our staff were there. I'd passed, you know, patients in the waiting room. And I just thought, "If I've brought this down on their heads "and everybody in the clinic has to quarantine for two weeks now "and all our patients' surgeries have to be cancelled, "it's going to be a nightmare." The next morning, she was told she was actually negative, but her close contacts were still told to isolate. So at this point, my colleagues and my partner had kind of an official SMS from the Department of Health saying you are required to quarantine. And then they had a forwarded SMS from me that said, "No, everything's fine. You don't have to." And I think some of them were OK with that, some of them were really uncomfortable with the lack of official direction. Many of the health officers that have been seconded from other states to assist Victoria have noticed how much or how much further behind Victoria is compared to other states in terms of their IT preparedness for a pandemic. It seems to me that, you know, Victoria and the Department of Health and Human Services has almost like a fax machine-style IT capability compared to a more contemporary one that we've seen other states. In early July, cases began to appear in large numbers in the worst places imaginable - aged care homes. REPORTER: As the number of new cases in Victoria again edges towards 300, the big worry is nursing homes. Nearly 80 residents and staff across 29 aged care facilities have now tested positive. MAN: I thought we could have been far better prepared. We should have learned from Dorothy Henderson Lodge and the Newmarch House outbreaks, which had occurred in New South Wales I think almost two months earlier. And so we were poorly prepared, and we were running around essentially like headless chooks, to use the vernacular. A major outbreak developed at Epping Gardens aged care facility. WOMAN: We really started to get quite worried. I sent the email and said, "Is there a COVID case in your centre?" No response. WOMAN: I just feel at a point of disbelief. I just can't believe that... ..they just dropped the ball and just let these events happen. WOMAN: I want to see my mum! At Epping Gardens, residents' families were locked out. I want to see my mum! I don't care what anyone says! I want to see my mum! I want to know she's alright! One night, resident Maureen O'Brien buzzed for a nurse, but when no-one responded, she went for help. She struggled to get up on her frame and she went out to the nurse's station and asked for a Panadol, and she was told...told off quite severely, ushered back to her room. But my mum wanted to know, "Why are all these people here? "What's going on?" She thought it was some get-together. Six staff were attending an unauthorised baby shower. Two were not on shift, and bypassed COVID protocols when they entered the building. It was arranged by one of the senior... ..more senior registered nurses at the time. It was unauthorised. Breached protocols. I can speak not only as a CEO, but as a registered nurse. I think the regard, or the lack of regard, that they have shown, those particular individuals, is something that is beyond the pale. How many people who went to that baby shower have tested positive for COVID now? The whole six. Is that how COVID got into Epping Gardens? We don't know. We don't know. WOMAN: What were you thinking? Having a party, a baby shower... ..in a place that was supposedly COVID free? They were safe up until that point. We couldn't get in, so why could they? A staff member and a resident were diagnosed with COVID―19 four days later. Health officials arranged for all residents to be tested, but it took six days for the swabs to be taken and the results returned. The tests revealed the virus had spread like wildfire. 60 residents were positive and 22 staff. GREG REEVE: From the first case, everything was introduced in terms of an outbreak management plan. That includes isolation of residents... ..personal protective equipment, masks, etc. So we did everything we could to mitigate the risk. But the impact is that you've got a whole group of people that are in there together, and we don't know who's positive and who's negative for what I think one could understand is seemingly an unreasonable length of time. Fewer and fewer staff were now coming to work. Some were infected, some were close contacts, others simply fearful for their own families. All of a sudden, we found ourselves running on empty in terms of staff. We tried every agency. We accessed the government, we informed the Department of Human Services. We informed the public health unit. We informed the Quality and Safety Commission. WOMAN: We're not getting answers on email. We're not getting answers on the phone. I don't know where we stand, but something's not right. We're feeling quite uncomfortable that our 92-year-old mother is in there and they don't answer a phone and they don't answer an email. Many of the residents in Epping Gardens suffered terribly. Meals missed, medications forgotten, unshowered for days. MAN: I've received calls off at least 20 different people who have had loved ones in the centre. They've all said that "There's no-one attending to my mum. "No-one attending to my dad." "They haven't received medication. They haven't been cleaned." There was a lot of cases where people were soiled and wet and dirty. There was a case of people that weren't fed, which is absolutely extraordinary, when you think about it. No, I don't abrogate my responsibilities. And I'm never going to say that. What I am saying is, first of all, that I don't think that they were neglected. There were... Clearly there was anxiety. Clearly there was a lot of stress. And clearly... But in terms of meeting their primary care needs, I will stay...say to this day that we will manage to deliver on that. The federal Health Department told Epping Gardens it had a plan to source extra staff through agencies when a Coronavirus outbreak occurred. But the plan didn't work. I was of the belief that Plan B was available. But clearly when... ..we did seek it, clearly it wasn't available, and... ..there were no...not... ..there were inadequate beds, there were inadequate staff and a range of other matters that I think is well publicised now. As the number of cases rose above 60, Epping Gardens wanted to send its COVID-positive patients to hospital. But Four Corners has established the federal Health Department pressed management to keep them at the home. When some were taken to hospital, they were turned away. I gave a directive for them to be decanted - excuse the word - but transferred, as I always thought was available to us, to hospitals. What I came to understand... ..is that that was not, in fact, allowable. Yeah, so the hospital refused to take those patients and sent them back? So what impact did that have on those patients? Well, it's fear. It's...it's...it's...it's... ..anxiety, as you can imagine. We didn't have the staff. And it's on record we could not provide the care. And that's what it... You know, it was just that simple. And I was seeking help from day dot. And the only thing was, the response that we got as an organisation was, "It's your obligation as the approved provider." At the height of the chaos, Sam Agnello's mother, Carmela, was taken to hospital after having a fall. Once there, she tested positive for Coronavirus. We actually had a... A Skype... ..a Skype meeting with my mum. And I just remember seeing her eyes... Terrified. It's like they were rolling around in her...in her eyes, the eye...pupils, and I'll never forget that. I go to sleep and I still think... ..and I can still see that call as though it happened just today. You know what I mean? She looked like she was scared and didn't know what was going on. She didn't. She couldn't speak. On Monday the 27th of July, a week after the outbreak started, just six staff turned up to care for 115 people. The federal government finally decided to send in Defence Force medics. The next day, Carmela Agnello died in hospital. I never thought I'd not be able to say goodbye. I knew she was going to die one day, but I never thought I'd... ..I'd not be able to say goodbye, or at least hold her hand through it. Doing it through a video call is not something that I ever imagined. Is this a woman 92 years of age? She deserves respect. And she didn't get it. She didn't get the care we thought she was gonna get at Epping Gardens. Would they treat their own mothers like that? Would they treat their own grandmothers like that? Because ours didn't get it. Horrible what's happened here. I mean, heartbreaking to everybody. And they need...they need to have a good look at what they're doing in there. And the government needs to have a damn good look too, because this cannot happen to more families, and it's still happening. Every day, people are dying from Epping Gardens. Every day, we're getting notification saying, "My father's died." "My mother's died." "My grandmother's died." And this is going to go on and on. Donna's mum, Maureen, also caught COVID-19. DONNA O'BRIEN: I've... She's really struggling. And, you know, I've had to have calls with doctors about.. ..not about her future of getting better, about what they'll do if she goes into cardiac arrest, which is nothing. So... ..I just...I just can't believe it. I just...I just can't believe it. I just think this is the most disgusting, unfair thing I've ever been involved with. 28 Epping Gardens residents have died of coronavirus. Are you sorry for what happened on your watch? I'm exceedingly sorry, exceedingly sorry. 'Sorry' is a word I'm not afraid to use. I feel for all and every one of them and the staff, families, staff, the residents. If I could have done it any different, I would have. If we, as an organisation, could have done it any different, we would have. However, we followed all the guidance - Federal, State - every piece of guidance that was available to us. Close to 1,400 residents in Victorian aged care have been infected with coronavirus in the last seven weeks. More than 180 of those have died. PROF IBRAHIM: My biggest fear now is not how many more will die... My biggest fear is we concentrate so much on what's in front of us that we don't stop to think about preparing all the other homes. So if Victoria has 100 homes affected now... There's another 2,600 homes in Australia. My question is, how prepared are they for an outbreak? And are they prepared well enough to catch it incredibly early so it doesn't do what it's done in Victoria? And, are we paying attention to the... Who's dealing with that problem? Who's preparing that? The causes of Victoria's second wave are being investigated by two inquiries in Melbourne. Today marks the first sitting of the public hearings of the COVID-19 hotel quarantine program inquiry. This inquiry relates specifically to the hotel quarantine program established by the Victorian Government. While the entire nation waits to see if this second wave can be stopped, it's clear nowhere is immune. (TRAM DINGS) PROF MacINTYRE: It could happen anywhere. That's what we all need to wrap our heads around in order to change our behaviour and all do our bit to stop things getting out of hand. You know, the fact is everyone in Australia, or almost everyone in Australia, is non-immune to the virus. And, you know, the virus is there. It's going to keep coming into the country through international travel and this kind of scenario could happen anywhere. We all have to be prepared for it. We all have to change the way we live so that we minimise the risk of it happening. Captions by Red Bee Media Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Info
Channel: ABC News In-depth
Views: 148,605
Rating: 3.8223116 out of 5
Keywords: coronavirus, COVID-19, second wave, coronavirus second wave, what went wrong, Victoria, Australia, Melbourne, hotel quarantine, security guards, security guard, PPE, mask, infection control training, doctor, warned, mistakes, Premiere Daniel Andrews, ABC, Four Corners, investigation, Victoria's hotel quarantine program, health department, emails, poor response, fault, Department of Health and Human Services, frontline health workers, guards sleeping on shift, sleeping quards, ABC News, virus
Id: qpkzy10KAVs
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 45min 23sec (2723 seconds)
Published: Mon Aug 17 2020
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.