Work on Pinkenba COVID-19 quarantine station to begin in October

It will include suitable medical facilities for testing, resuscitation, and ambulance transfer and be able to cope with COVID-19 positive cases with mild symptoms.

The federal government will pay for the construction on the Damascus Barracks at Pinkenba on the Defence Department land and the Queensland government will operate the quarantine facility.

“The next step will be getting the agreement with the Queensland government to proceed with this,” Senator Birmingham’s spokesman said.

“That is what we are in the process of doing now.”

Mr Birmingham’s spokesman said there was no suggestion Queensland was delaying the process because the draft MOU had only been with Queensland for a week.

“This is a joint project where we effectively build it, as the Commonwealth, and the state government will run it for the duration of the pandemic,” the spokesman said.

“We then take it back and use it as an evacuation centre for cyclones or bushfires or whatever.

“But we haven’t quite got agreement with them yet to proceed.”

The centre’s staffing â€" except for healthcare â€" would most likely be subcontracted by the Queensland government, Mr Birmingham’s spokesman said.

“It might be a combination of both, but I see a situation where they get a company in to do the catering, get a security company in, and get a cleaning company in to do the cleaning, for example.”

The concept design will proceed after MOU is signed, he said.

Damascus Barracks is now used by the Australian Army, who plan to relocate some equipment.

It was chosen because it is close to three tertiary hospitals in Brisbane, close to an international airport that receives regular scheduled international commercial passenger flights. The land is also Commonwealth-owned.

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles on Friday morning said the Queensland government was working closely with federal authorities to get the quarantine centre operating as quickly as possible.

Mr Miles said discussions had begun with Queensland Health and Queensland Police about shifting operations from hotel quarantine to the new Pinkenba quarantine centre.

“We will continue to talk to health and police in particular about how they can change what they currently do, take what they currently do in a hotel setting into this alternative setting,” Mr Miles said.

Loading

“But I don’t imagine it would be an order of magnitude more than what it cost to do in hotel quarantine.”

Damascus Barracks was established in the 1940s on 25 hectares of land owned by the Defence Department near the Brisbane Airport. It is now a 29.5-hectare site.

Only “a portion of Damascus Barracks” is required for the new Pinkenba quarantine centre, the Defence Department said.

No estimate of cost is yet available.

Source: | This article originally belongs to smh.com.au

Related

Share this post