NSW Police outline plan to end cruiseship impasse

SYDNEY: Doctors will be flown on to foreign cruise ships floating off NSW in a joint government operation to test and evacuate patients needing urgent coronavirus treatment.

Once crews have been treated, the federal government will increase pressure on foreign cruise companies to sail away from Australia.

NSW Police are locked in a standoff with foreign cruise ships, urging them to proceed immediately to their home ports rather than risk flooding NSW hospitals with Covid19 patients.

In an attempt to end the stalemate, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said yesterday helicopters would be used to fly doctors on board.

‘‘At first they will go on and they will do an assessment and the standard temperature check and ask questions around symptoms of the virus,’’ he said.

‘‘If the crew is fit and healthy, I have no hesitation in asking [Home Affairs] Minister [Peter] Dutton to enforce the orders for them to leave our shores.’’

Anyone requiring urgent medical attention would be brought ashore.

Fuller said there were eight cruise ships off NSW carrying about 8500 crew members, and all known Australian crew members had been extracted.

Two ships had agreed to refuel over the coming days and depart Australian shores.

‘‘If a small percentage end up with the virus it will overwhelm our health system and everything we’ve done to date will be wasted,’’ he said.

‘‘Every cruise ship that leaves, I see it as a victory for NSW.’’

The federal government will pay for the operation.

Dutton said yesterday there would be a ‘‘proper assessment of what’s happening on board’’.

‘‘If you force these boats to set sail and they have people that die or get seriously sick by the time they get a couple of hundred nautical miles off the coast, they will turn around and come back,’’ he said.