Hundreds of Australians trapped in the city of Wuhan could miss out on the government’s proposed evacuation to Christmas Island as transport is shut down in Hubei province.
Elderly Australians and pregnant women also have health concerns about being held for 14 days in the isolated island’s former detention centre, due to its rudimentary health facilities. Christmas Island is located 2,600km from the Australian mainland in the Indian Ocean.
And Australian families with a mix of citizens and permanent residents could be split up.
Roughly 600 Australians in Wuhan and the Hubei province, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, have registered with the Australian government: about 150 of those have expressed an interest in being evacuated to Christmas Island, the Guardian understands.
Moko Yong, a photographer from Melbourne, said he was in contact with about 140 Australians in Wuhan and Hubei discussing the proposed plan. Yong has not yet decided if he will evacuate, and told Guardian Australia he was not personally worried about the new coronavirus.
But he said many others had growing concerns.
“There are elderly people, children and also pregnant women who are facing more practical problems than us,” he said, speaking through a translator. “They are probably facing the problem of running out of medication, formula, milk powder because they probably did not plan to stay this long [in Wuhan].
“In terms of getting onto Christmas Island, people have different views and it’s a difficult decision for many people. But because there are elderly people and pregnant women, they are concerned about medical conditions on the island.”
Christmas Island’s medical facilities have been upgraded over the past year but they still lack an intensive care unit to treat critically ill people. Nor is there a maternity ward. Women on the island usually fly to Perth to give birth.
Guardian Australia spoke to two other Australians in Wuhan who were unsure if they would be able to get to the airport.
Yong said he knew of multiple Australians further out in Hubei, who were now effectively stranded.
“It’s very difficult, even for people in the city of Wuhan to travel to the airport … public transport has been stopped at the moment. There are people who have concerns about how to reach the airport by themselves.
“If people live outside of Wuhan, in other areas of Hubei province, it would be even more difficult. Those stranded in their own village can’t get out,” he said.
“The current situation is they are not allowed to get out of their village and no one can get into the village. We are waiting for the official announcement.
“For those rural areas of Hubei, they can’t even reach Wuhan, because the roads have all been closed.”
Yong said there were “definitely” cases of families that could be split up in the evacuation.
“There is someone who is currently in the rural area of Hubei, the parents are permanent residents, but their children were born in Australia so are Australian citizens. Under the arrangement only the child can be evacuated, but not the parents.”
On Wednesday, the Australian prime minister announced plans to evacuate Australians and New Zealanders from Wuhan to Christmas Island on a chartered Qantas Boeing 747.
The plane proposed for the airlift has a capacity of 371 passengers: the evacuation would prioritise the “isolated and vulnerable” – including infants and the elderly – Scott Morrison said.
Japan, the US, and the UK have already brought planeloads of citizens out of the locked down province in central China, while other countries including France, India, and Indonesia have committed to extricating their citizens.
Australian evacuees will be quarantined on Christmas Island for 14 days before being transported to Perth. People who have been confirmed as having coronavirus, or who are symptomatic and suspected of having the virus, will not be able to fly.
Those who are evacuated will have to pay $1,000 for the cost of their transport and accommodation.
This, the government says, is consistent with previous government-run airlifts such as out of Lebanon in 2006, and Egypt in 2011. But this is being fiercely contested.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, foreign minister at the time of the Arab Spring and the Egyptian evacuation, said online: “Morrison’s claim that Labor charged Australians for tickets on charter flights out of Egypt during the 2011 uprising is an outright falsehood”.
“The cost (about $3400 per person) was borne by the Government. Why is ‘Scotty from Marketing’ slugging Aussies to get them out of Wuhan?”
The prime minister Julia Gillard said in a media release “the charter will be provided free of charge”, and the then head of the department of foreign affairs and trade, Dennis Richardson, confirmed at Senate estimates the costs of the charter were all borne by the government.
Negotiations between Australian and Chinese officials are continuing – with particular focus on the issues of dual citizens and split families – but the Australian government’s proposed airlift does not yet have permission from the Chinese government.
There are acute political sensitivities in China around foreign nationals being evacuated from the virus epicentre while its own citizens are kept quarantined. This would be amplified if some Chinese citizens – Australian permanent resident parents of an Australian citizen child for instance – were allowed to leave.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline had asked for volunteers to work on the Wuhan airlift and had been overwhelmed by staff willing to assist.
“We have actually had 50 cabin crew vol which is enough to man it five times over. We are really proud of our people putting their hand up to help.
“We have an aircraft ready to go and the government is working through getting the permits from the Chinese … You need a permit from the Chinese and that is [negotiated] government to government.
“The government is also working through seeing what passengers want to take this service, making sure that there is enough interest.”
Joyce said there would be additional precautions taken on board the flight, for passengers and crew.
“There will a lot of precautions, there will be face masks. There will be for example meals and drinks laid out on the seats before the flight departs and there will be a lot of government officials on the aircraft to help manage the passengers.”
The designation of Christmas Island as a quarantine centre has not been welcomed by all on the island. Shire president Gordon Thomson said the island was being treated like “a leper colony”.
“Christmas Island remains a colony and is yet again getting the old regressive colonialist treatment from the great colonial power. Get lost Scotty.”
The head of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Tony Bartone, said isolated Christmas Island was a poor clinical choice, as well as being insensitive to a cohort of people already “under a lot of stress and fear and concern”.
“Remember, Australian Medical Assistance Teams (Ausmat) are going into Christmas Island to provide the necessary solutions. It’s not like Christmas Island has got the solution. They’re ramping up their facilities and their resources with the teams coming in. So we can do that in a number of other places much more humanely.”
Home affairs minister Peter Dutton defended the Christmas Island evacuation plan, saying it was designed to keep the broader population safe.
“I can’t clear a hospital in Sydney or Melbourne to accommodate 600 people.
“We don’t have a facility otherwise that can take this number of people. I want to make sure that we keep Australians safe.”
