A man desperate to see his dying mother says he's getting angrier by the day as the Queensland Government refuses to grant a travel exemption allowing him to leave his hotel quarantine.
The Queensland Ombudsman and Human Rights Commission is now investigating the decision by Queensland Health to refuse to allow Mark Talbot, from Brisbane, the exemption on compassionate grounds to see his mother before she dies.
Mr Talbot is helplessly waiting in his hotel room to visit his terminally ill mother Coral, 83, who is dying of organ failure in Hervey Bay.
"We're kind of getting half angry about it now because we feel that there's some basic, you know, deprovision of liberty here and some of our rights are being violated by the Queensland Health Department," Mr Talbot told Today.
"There's a lot of sadness around this."
Mr Talbot has been quarantined at a hotel room for nearly a week after returning from the United States.
He's just four hours away from his mother and he has returned a negative test for COVID-19.
Doctors have given him the all-clear to continue his self-quarantine in a separate part of his mother's house but the Queensland government has so far denied his request.
Mr Talbot said he was being kept in the dark.
"The only response, the only thing I get to see is what ends up on the TV. The last interview I saw with the chief health officer was kind of a bit crazy because her response to a question about myself quarantining in a separate dwelling at my mother's place was that, well, if I'm prepared to do that, then I should be prepared to stay in the hotel here, which completely side-steps the whole issue of why this is going down.
"I mean, I'm trying to get to her in case she passes, while I'm in here."
He conducted some of his own research, which led him to believe authorities have the power to grant an exemption.
"It begs the question, maybe I should have flown into NSW," he added.
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