The truth is that the MIQ programme was a shambles from its inception and rose to a standard of passable quality thanks to the skills and professionalism of hotel staff and on-site supporting agencies.
There is a lot we can learn collectively – and at a political and policy level – from this experience, so we can prepare properly and be able to kick into action more seamlessly in the event of a future pandemic.
Here’s what we learned on the front lines of the MIQ system:
1. Reinstate the plan. There was a low level of leadership and expertise within both local and central government in relation to our isolation response. As a country we should have been able to deploy and react to the crisis much more efficiently – in fact, we had already prepared for it. Several years before the pandemic I was a signatory to a document that had committed hotels in the area surrounding Auckland Airport to a pandemic and isolation plan. Some astute member of staff at Auckland Council and/or the local DHBs had anticipated and come up with a plan for what eventually happened.
However, this plan was never implemented, so when the crisis hit, the response was made on the fly. I hope the inquiry looks at what happened there, and a plan is reinstated for another pandemic, as epidemiologists say is inevitable.
2. Establish a clear chain of command. On one occasion a local authority representative called to tell me they were commandeering one of our hotels for the purposes of isolation. The next day a military representative told me they intended to make the same request for the same purpose, meaning two potential government tenants were competing for the same hotel. On day three a police sergeant stated he had authority to occupy over all others. It was a classic example of the need for state agencies to co-ordinate their plans, hold a meeting of key stakeholders and share information.
There is nothing new about hotels being taken over as field hospitals, quarantine facilities or emergency care or accommodation sites – it’s standard operating procedure in times of civic upheaval – but it must be underpinned by an organised process. Any future pandemic response must be preceded by the agreement of a chain of command determining who decides on the assignation of facilities that the Government is paying to commandeer and run.
3. Set up a communication matrix with hotel operators at the centre. A few weeks into the crisis, some harmonisation of MIQ facilities appeared to have been achieved. However, that illusion was shattered one day as I watched the 1pm briefing and a minister announced that the Government was “standing up” another MIQ hotel, with the first arriving travellers anticipated later that day. Unfortunately, there were a couple of issues with this – the hotel was ours, and no one had told me or any of my colleagues. The hotel in question had been closed indefinitely, meaning staff had moved on and there were no consumables or PPE gear on site.
Once I had run the gauntlet of shock and bad language, our team swung into action and I am proud to say our local staff welcomed the first guests by 8pm the same day with full PPE equipment and comprehensive operational procedures. (The military and public health teams involved arrived on-site equally unprepared but also rallied.) These were staff who had left the business earlier in lockdown but came back to bravely face an unknown health risk and the enormous task of recommissioning a hotel, all because they thought it was the right thing to do to help save the lives of fellow New Zealanders. They are all heroes, and they deserve to be properly recognised by the Government.
4. Establish accountability, including on legal questions that affect business owners and directors. This was scarce during long stretches of MIQ. We observed that no one further up the chain of public sector leadership was willing to confirm the level of risk our employees faced.
A parallel concern was the risk companies faced under the Health & Safety Act. If an employee was to fall seriously ill or die from Covid having been exposed to it while at work, would we as employers face legal proceedings in the future?
We could not get clarification on this question, and therefore I viewed the risk to employees and our company directors as potentially too great, and at one point came within hours of making the decision to close completely the four nationwide facilities we managed.
Although no formal instruction was ever issued, I was temporarily mollified by a statement from authorities that any legal action was unlikely. In the turmoil that was MIQ governance, I accepted that was as good an answer as we were ever likely to get. To return to a plan: this is the kind of question that can be assessed, considered by Crown Law and addressed in advance of a crisis, so that businesses can prepare.
As the formal inquiry continues, I have doubts the valuable lessons from the MIQ experience have been fully learned by our officials.
Today we are again signatories to a Readiness Programme that would permit re-establishment of isolation hotels. However, hotels are expected to maintain high-quality air conditioning and CCTV services without ongoing financial support. There is no requirement for mandatory pandemic training for staff, and no PPE stock is expected to be held on-site.
My grave concern is that, over time, the IP that hotels earned through painful experience will erode. Let’s not let this happen, and instead develop a Readiness Programme with real teeth, one that takes the hard lessons we all learned and embeds them in a practical, flexible model that consistently upskills people and stocks and supports facilities, so we can turn on a future crisis response as easily as flicking a switch.
