ESPERANCE FAMILY DENIED COVID PROTECTION

Rickesha Kelly and her seven-month-old daughter Mah'lanni Miller-Kelly.

GEOFF VIVIAN

A Yamaji woman living in Esperance says her whole household of nine people now has COVID  because a family member was told she had to “isolate” in their three-bedroom house.

“They were giving us the misleading information,” Rickesha Kelly said.

“They had accommodation for her but they never moved her from my premises and now we’ve all become infected.”

Ms Kelly said one of her family, an 11 year old boy, had become so sick they had to take an ambulance to hospital.

She said St John Ambulance officers had refused to allow an adult to accompany the child.

“The hospital later on that night rang me and asked me ‘how come none of us went with him?’” Ms Kelly said.

“We said ‘we asked them, even people that (tested) negative in my house asked them to go with him’ and they said ‘no’, that he had to go by his self.”

A St John Ambulance spokesperson said it was up to the Ambulance crew whether or not to allow family to accompany a patient in the ambulance. 

“There are a number of reasons to not welcome family onto an ambulance journey ranging from the requirement to focus on a very ill patient, through to social distancing measures if the crew feels the patient does not require a family escort,” she said.

The WA Health Department has been contacted for comment.