Cancer patient locked out of Australia
Imagine being in a foreign country when the Covid19 pandemic hit. In Washington no less when Trump was in power, spruiking his dangerous idiocies which lead to half a million covid deaths under his Presidency.
Imagine surviving the terror of the unfolding political tensions in the US, which culminated in rioters storming the Capitol, slowly crawling back to freedom with double vaccination and the steady hand of the Biden
administration, enjoying some newfound travel freedoms of your host country, only to be hit with a cancer diagnosis — aggressive ‘triple negative breast cancer’ requiring urgent life-saving treatment.
That has been the awful turn of events for my beautiful friend Kate Turner and her family, who I met through our mother’s group 17 years ago.
The Turners live in Blackburn in a gorgeous weatherboard that looks like a scene out of a Jane Austen novel. They are solid gold people, always raising money for good causes, loved by many for their generous spirit. When Kate’s husband Blair was offered a chance to work for a United Nations affiliated agency, they took up the opportunity of a lifetime to work and travel with their teenage daughters Alice and Lucy, only for their dream adventure to take this devastating detour.
Where we find them now is where nobody battling cancer should be — stuck overseas, unable to get home to Australia because of cancelled flights and government restrictions on arrivals, facing the prospect of no health insurance for treatment when Blair’s work contract ends this year.
They were due to fly back to Australia in December, but their Emirates flight has been cancelled, and the airline says another won’t be available until February 2022.
They have made an impassioned plea in an open letter to try to get home.
“The last thing we would want is to endanger the health of our friends, family and the broader community. However, our entire family has been double vaccinated with either Pfizer or Moderna. Surely, we can put in place a system whereby fully vaccinated and tested Australian residents can return to some form of home quarantine. This would allow a much greater number of arrivals, finally making some sort of dent in the thousands of Australians needing to return home. It would also provide some certainty for airlines to provide return flights; reduce costs to individuals and governments through less demand on hotel quarantine; and free up quarantine space for those who actually have COVID. Most significantly, it would allow me to return to my home so I can get life-saving medical treatment required by my wife, and allow my children to return back to school. Unfortunately, ours is just one of thousands of similar stories of Australians desperately trying to return to their homes. They have not been on holiday — they have legitimate reasons for travel, and similar stories about their need to return home.”
“We would urge the Australian state and federal governments to reconsider the current restrictions on returning Australians. For those who are fully vaccinated, the chance of spreading COVID would seem less for a returning traveller than current levels of community transmission. This risk can be reduced to almost zero if vaccination and testing is combined with some form of home quarantine. The current policy is untenable and is leading to life-altering consequences — not just inconvenience. Please help us and the thousands of other Australians who have equally valid reasons to return home.”
Kate Turner’s cancer journal https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kateturner3
