A student nurse quarantining in a Spanish hotel says she'd 'rather be in prison' and that other isolating guests have had to resort to passing essential supplies between rooms using tied-up bed sheets.
Sophie Burdge,was so dehydrated and starved after arriving at the quarantine hotel that she was forced to phone reception to beg for food and water, as reported by The Mirror.
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At one point the situation left her so distraught she was crying to staff, the BBC reports.
While food and water is provided at the Hotel Palma Bellve her delayed arrival meant she could not get any for a day and even when she ordered in the McDonald's meal was confiscated due to it being processed.
Other guests got round the strict policy by using similar bed sheet pulleys to retrieve food from bemused delivery drivers.
The 22-year-old from Bury has also run out of mental health medication and is unable to get any more, while the lack of a laundry service means she's having to wash her knickers in the sink.
She had taken a much needed break to Majorca after a tough year in which she lost her partner but after relaxing with a friend and her daughter things went downhill when she arrived for her return flight only to test positive for Covid.
As is the policy in amber list Spain – where double-vaccinated travellers can holiday without having to isolate on their return – she then had to quarantine for 10 days in a hotel.
But despite the hotel's use she says her condition has not been checked on in the five days she has been there.
She tested positive at the airport on Tuesday night but was not taken to the hotel until the following night, by which point it was too late to get food.
She resorted to ordering a McDonald's delivery at 1pm the following day, but it was confiscated and a follow up order also never made it to her.
"I was crying my eyes out because I was so hungry, I was starving," she said.
"I was ringing and ringing and ringing asking and begging for water, I think I was crying at one point for water."
One guest lowered a bottle of water down to her room so she could have a drink.
She only took a seven-day medication supply for her week-long holiday but this has now run out and she cannot get a new prescription.
Hotel Palma Bellver has said that the facility was being run more like a hospital than a hotel, and that the food was being served by hospital catering as a result.
Water, they said, is available upon request.
"The guests/patients are allowed to order meals outside, (as well as other basic supplies) but not processed food, as per the doctor's prescription," a spokesman added.
The hotel acts as a "connecting agent" between the various bodies involved in managing the quarantine facility.
