Former residents on Ruby Princess

On Thursday, March 19, when the mega cruise liner Ruby Princess docked at Sydney’s Circular Quay 2647 passengers disembarked, many with undiagnosed coronavirus.

Now there have been almost 200 COVID-19 cases diagnosed in NSW from the Ruby Princess.

On board the ship were former Narrabri residents Janet Dixon-Hughes (nee King), her mother Wynne King, 95, and Janet’s daughter Polly.

Wynne and the late Alan King, owners of Kings Jewellers, were prominent Narrabri residents until the family moved to Tamworth in 1977. Janet returns to Narrabri from time to time and still calls Narrabri home.

Now the trio are in 14 days mandatory isolation.

“We will come out of quarantine on April 2,” said Mrs Dixon-Hughes.

They have not reported any health ill effects. Except anger.

“I am aghast,” said Mrs Dixon-Hughes.

“We were not even told that there were suspected COVID-19 cases on board.

“We came home to our families with no warning that we might be carrying the virus and could have infected them or others we might have come into contact with in getting home.

“Most people would have been happy to stay on board for a day or two to be tested before being disembarked,” she said.

“And the people who had to get on a plane and return to their homes interstate or overseas who risked infecting others should have been made to stay in Sydney in isolation at a hotel for two weeks to stop the spread. About 30 percent of the passengers were from overseas.”

The Ruby Princess docked much earlier than usual at 1am and the seriously unwell patients were apparently stretchered off into waiting ambulances at about 2.30am.

Other passengers started disembarking the ship rapidly from 8.30am. All were warned of the need for self isolation, and promptly dispersed across the country and around the world.

Mrs King is an experienced traveller.

“I have never entered Australia so fast through customs and immigration,” she said.

“We were waiting in our designated area for disembarkation at 9.35am but they came to get us about 9.15am.

“A steward took my mother in a wheel chair and I had to literally run to keep up, we were moving so fast. We were out the door, along the deck, across the gangplank and into the lift. Once downstairs we collected our bags and a porter assisted us and put the bags on a trolley and we thought ‘now we will stand in the queue.’

“There was only one person standing there collecting immigration cards, we had passports out and they said ‘put your passports away’ – they didn’t want to see them.

“They waved our passports and documents aside as we went through customs. There was no health or other checking. No one was tested.

“We basically just streamed through the doors and up to the taxi rank then into a cab. We were home in Turramurra by 10 o’clock!

“Twenty-four hours later we received an email informing us that there were confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Ruby Princess and that we had gone from being “an outside chance” of being exposed to the virus to “close contact” of confirmed cases.

“At that point my mother and I decided that the risk of infecting my husband and younger daughter was too great if we stayed so we took an Uber to her retirement unit at Narrabeen and we have been here ever since.

“Nobody knew there were sick passengers on board. We were told nothing,” Mrs Dixon-Hughes said.

“Thankfully we had kept to ourselves a fair bit, mainly because of Mum’s limited mobility so I think we’ve had a very lucky escape.

“I believe it was a huge failure in infection control protocols and a serious breach of trust on the part of the cruise line.

“The rapid disembarkation and subsequent release of infected passengers into the community was a massive bungle by the Health Department, Border Force, Sydney Harbour Port Authority and Department of Agriculture who are responsible for biosecurity.

“I’m very glad we got off the ship and could spend our isolation at home but for the sake of public health it shouldn’t have been allowed,” said Mrs Dixon-Hughes.

“Everybody should have been tested. It would only have taken another day or two to make sure everyone who was infected was identified and whoever wasn’t could go home and not panic.

“The cruise line had already abandoned any further cruises for the foreseeable future and really our cruise should never have departed.

“Before we left for the cruise on March 8 we were concerned about the growing number of cases and there was the beginnings of panic buying and hoarding,” said Mrs Dixon-Hughes.

“Several friends and relatives had begged us not to go but Princess cruises refused to allow us to postpone or cancel our trip.”

Now the three of us are waiting out the last few days of isolation, reflecting on their ‘holiday.’

“March 18 was the anniversary of Dad’s passing and we wanted to celebrate Dad’s life in a way he would have approved of because he loved to travel, and in the last 10 years before Dad developed dementia they had done six cruises.”

“I said to Mum ‘let’s go and have an adventure’.

“What an adventure!” Mrs Dixon- Hughes said.

“I swore off cruising after my last cruise on ‘Fairstar – the funship’ in 1979 which I went on with Judy Andrews from Wee Waa,” she recalled.

“Now I’ve certainly sworn off them again!”