In another twist to the story of the cruise ship at the centre of the largest COVID-19 cluster in Australia, health officials have revealed a doctor’s report arrived AFTER the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney showing more cases.
Had it been filed on time, it probably would have stopped passengers leaving without checks.
According to The Australian newspaper, up to a dozen passengers whose symptoms were not provided to NSW Health authorities were on a doctor’s log not filed until one day after the ship docked.
Health officials told the paper it would have likely raised the ship’s risk profile from “low” to “medium” — mandating a full health screening of passengers.
The Australian reported: “A NSW government official said the extra names would have almost certainly changed the ship’s biosecurity rating from “low” to “medium” risk, a determination that would have mandated health officers boarding the ship to conduct extensive screening.”
Passengers were allowed off the ship without checks, even though 13 passengers were being tested for COVID-19. Some 21 deaths and at least 700 infections nationwide have been connected to the Ruby Princess outbreak.
Today, epidemiologist Kelly-Anne Ressler broke down and apologised for the NSW Health department’s failures at the special inquiry.
“All I can say is that I’m very sorry it turned out the way it did. It was not our intention. Myself and my colleagues at the public health unit were working very hard on this. We did what we could. And if we could do it again, it would be very different.”
The special commission of inquiry heard under guidelines implemented the same day the ship docked, NSW Health had to be informed if there had been a respiratory outbreak of more than 1 per cent of passengers on board.
Counsel Assisting the Inquiry, Richard Beasley SC, said a NSW Health team assessed the vessel as “low risk” before the ship arrived.
The ship’s log used to make that assessment recorded 36 of the 3,795 people on board had presented to the medical centre with relevant symptoms — 0.94 per cent.
As the 1 per cent threshold had not been reached, passengers were allowed to disembark the next day without teams from NSW Health boarding to ship to make assessments.
The inquiry heard senior physician on the ship Ilse Von Watzdorf first filed one log, but had another in her inbox which was sent a day after the ship docked.
Dr Von Watzdorf received a text from Ms Ressler, on the afternoon of March 20. The text exchange took place in the hours after four positive cases of COVID-19 were confirmed from patient swabs.
“Some of the people swabbed aren’t on the log I have. Did you add any more patients after you sent it to me, and do you have an updated log?” Dr Ressler wrote.
According to The Australian report, Dr Von Watzdorf confirmed there was an updated log and apologised for the oversight.
“I had the final updated log in a draft box,” she said. “It had just – the day just became – I did not have enough hours, I think.”
The Australian reported that it understands the updated patient logs, which recorded the names of sick passengers who presented to the medical centre in the 17 hours after that email was sent but before the ship docked, would have placed the ship at or above that threshold for general passenger checks.
Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy is on record as saying: “In retrospect, there were some decisions made that everyone regrets … clearly there were mistakes made.
“Everyone was doing their best in tricky and tense times at what was probably the peak of the outbreak.”
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Thousands of passengers and only ONE doctor
Cruise ship.more then 3000 guest ONLY 1 doctor thank you.
Retired cruiser.Iam OUT.
My name is Olive Williams I am 86 years old .My story is I disembarked The Sun Princess on the 19th of March at Whites Bay. I had pre arranged and prepaid formy transfer to my home when the driver arrived to pick me up there was one seat vacant for me .The mini bus had already been to Circular Key and had 12 passengers from the Ruby for my 90 minute drive to my home in very close proximity . I was the unfortunate one to be diagnosed with COVD 19 . No one told me that they had been told to isolate for 14 days .If i had been told of this i would have told the driver to take my luggage to my home . I would have found my own way to Central Railway and have caught the train home
Up to govt to protect us..U don’t have to be a professor to figure at least some would have been carrying corona.. they should step up and take full responsibility
.at the very least they should have quarantined the ship for 2 weeks and monitored them with new health dictors
@Marie Gerrey – NSW Health trusting ship doctor was the error. They should have conducted their own investigation in the time of pandemic. Assume nothing, trust no one.
People are not perfect!!!. It’s time to move on . Dwelling on the past would only cause anger, animosity and stress. We should focus on caring and looking after one another during this horrible surreal period.
Ah here we go. Find a scapegoat on the ship. NSW Health knew there were sick people on board and that they had been swabbed, before they allowed the passengers to disembark.
This is just more pathetic buck-passing from NSW Health. The ship had already reported that there were at least 30 or so passengers on board with flu like or other suspicious symptoms. Even without the additional 12 later identified, wouldn’t it occur to NSW authorities that by the time the ship berthed, there would likely be many more passengers showing symptoms? This 1% threshold is meaningless, bureaucratic nonsense, risible as an excuse for not testing passengers on arrival.
I was informed by princess cruises and Australian securitys that my tempricture will be taken before I bourd the ship if my tempricture is not in normal range I would not be permitted on the ship, I was on the ruby princess from the 8/2/2020 to 12/2/2020, I received the emails on the January long weekend, my birthday 27/1/2020 I did not have my tempricture tested at anytime, I did not see any temperature testing. At anytime,
The emails sent to NSW Health Dept stipulated they had sick people on board but they were told to disembark anyway. Maybe the ship’s doctor could have been more thorough but I feel much of the blame lies with NSW government who are trying to put the whole responsibility on Ruby Princess.
Great article.
Sadly it shows the incompetance of the ship’s Doctor to adequately maintain basic records.
It makes you wonder if she always is so tardy in her chosen Profession.
Certainly puts me off ever booking another cruise with Princess if this is normal manner in which their Professionally qualified staff carry out their duties.