Northern Territory knocks back vaccinated nurse travelling to remote community for essential work

A fully vaccinated nurse has been denied entry to work in a remote Northern Territory community due to a simple administrative error.

The Rumour File broke the news of the nurse’s plight, and it’s now been confirmed by Neil Mitchell.

Di Lewis normally works as a remote area nurse in the NT, but had to return to regional Victoria for family reasons.

She landed in Darwin yesterday, ready to quarantine for two weeks and then return to her job.

“I filled in my COVID application, put down frontline worker, had two letters from my employer, they said ‘Yeah, you’re all good to go’,” Ms Lewis told Neil Mitchell.

But when Ms Lewis arrived in the NT, she found airport workers whispering.

“They said ‘You can’t come in, you haven’t got authorisation by the NT government,” Ms Lewis said.

“Apparently there’s another form to fill out, which I wasn’t aware of.

“I didn’t see it when I applied for my application online, but there’s apparently a NT government request that takes 72 hours to see if you’re approved or not.”

Ms Lewis was taken to Howard Springs for quarantine and told she would be fined $5000 for breaching restrictions, and sent back to Victoria.

Her employer submitted an urgent exemption request to the NT Health Department in a bid to keep her in the territory, but that was knocked back this morning.

The nurse is being escorted out of quarantine and being put back on a flight to Victoria today.

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