Ms Simpson said: “Footballers and celebrities are allowed COVID-safe plans to home isolate in Queensland but this vulnerable and frail woman has been denied the same opportunity to home quarantine under a COVID-safe plan and has instead been told to go into hotel quarantine.
“That’s cruel and wrong for her health condition. Her family says this is a risk to her mental and physical health and they appealing for all the facts to be taken into account to allow her to home quarantine under a COVID safe plan.
“This elderly women’s doctor has written advising of the urgency and the need for home-based support with her family, not a hotel. No one is asking for special favours, her family is asking for a COVID-safe plan that some groups of people have been given to allow this 85-year-old woman who is escaping domestic abuse to have the care and support she needs in a safe environment.
“Anyone who understands the challenges of dementia will appreciate that a hotel room, instead of a home, is not appropriate for a distressed and agitated lady for her mental or physical health,” Ms Simpson said.
Ms Simpson said the family had support mechanisms in place to ensure that if they could take their mum home she would be supported with no outside contact and no risk to the community.
“It’s hard to fathom that the medical advice could be so inconsistent to allow celebrities, footballers and boxing ring technicians to have exemptions from hotel quarantine but an elderly abuse victim who suffers dementia with all its complications can’t get a COVID-safe plan approved to home isolate with more appropriate support.
“I suspect that the full medical circumstances of this dear women’s circumstances haven’t been properly taken into consideration, so we are urging the State Government and Chief Health Officer to reconsider all the facts.
“The family are concerned that for their mother to remain in Victoria she is at great risk to her life.”
