A weeks-long committal hearing to determine whether Victoria’s Department of Health will stand trial over its handling of the hotel quarantine program that contributed to the state’s deadly second COVID-19 wave has started at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
The unusually long hearing will run over the course of five weeks and hear evidence from a total of 56 witnesses – 29 over the next three weeks and another 27 when proceedings resume in March next year.
Hotel workers inside the Stamford Plaza, one of the quarantine hotels that became the site of an outbreak in 2020.Credit: Getty Images
WorkSafe charged the Department of Health with 58 breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act in September last year, alleging the department failed to provide a safe workplace for its employees and ensure people were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.
The watchdog claims the department failed to appoint people with infection prevention and control expertise at the hotels, failed to provide security guards with appropriate infection control training, and did not provide, at least initially, written instructions on how to use protective gear.
It alleges the guards received little training other than completing an online module from the Commonwealth government and were often instructed on how to use personal protective equipment and follow other COVID safety measures by colleagues acting as supervisors.
In an executive summary released to the media, WorkSafe claims 90 per cent of virus infections recorded during the state’s second wave can be traced back to six security guards, a healthcare worker, and a hotel employee at the Rydges Hotel that became infected in May 2020.
The remaining 10 per cent of cases stem from a chain of transmission within the Stamford Plaza Hotel, which led to 26 guards and a Department of Health employee contracting the virus in June 2020, the summary reads.
The court heard the government hired security companies Unified Security, MSS Security, and Wilson Security to staff the hotels, which in turn subcontracted work to a number of other security companies.
The companies were responsible for providing their own personal protective equipment and training staff on how to protect themselves from COVID-19, the court was told.
Former MSS risk adviser Charles Hooper said security guards were taught how to use personal protective equipment, observe social distancing and maintain good hand hygiene through an online module. Posters were also placed in break rooms to remind staff about the protective measures.
Hooper said he would personally deliver personal protective equipment to five quarantine hotels when supplies were running low.
“There was a time it was quite frequent. Usually, I would get a call from the supervisor advising they were running low on PPE. That’s when we would provide them with PPE,” he said.
The Department of Health was responsible for the state’s first hotel quarantine program between March and July 2020. The program, which was designed to prevent international travellers from spreading COVID-19 in the community, became known as Operation Soteria –after the Greek goddess of safety.
The hearing continues.
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