31 Mar 2020

Treatment of guests in government quarantine labelled 'shameful'

5:24 pm on 31 March 2020

A woman whose husband is in government-managed quarantine at a hotel says its treatment of guests is shameful.

A person has a sample collected to be tested for COVID-19 on March 23, 2020, at the CBM69 laboratory, part of Eurofins clinical diagnostics group, in Villeurbanne, central-eastern France,

File photo. Photo: AFP

Many New Zealanders arriving home from overseas who don't live close to airports are being housed at buildings including the Grand Mercure hotel in Auckland.

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A note from the Grand Mercure hotel in Auckland, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, telling those quarantined in the hotel they can go for walks etc outside.

Photo: Supplied

Ministry of Health notices handed out by the hotel on Saturday and seen by RNZ told people they could go to supermarkets or shops, but on Sunday a second notice told them they could not.

"The Ministry of Health have advised that all guests in isolation hotels must cease going to retail premises, effective immediately," the second notice said.

"That is shameful," said Cath, whose husband is a guest at the hotel and did not want her full name used.

She said she had 'exhausted every avenue she could' to reach a government official about her husband's situation but had come up with nothing.

"If he has a heart attack and dies, who is going to let me know, who's going to check on him? Because no one is," she said.

Cath said her husband's temperature was also taken on Sunday by people who didn't identify themselves.

The Ministry of Health has been approached for comment.

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