Reflecting on father’s death 12 months ago,it is less the mesothelioma cancer that haunts me;it is the COVID-19 social restrictions that set citizen against citizen,neighbour against neighbour.
The late Ross Pickard,whose wake last year was interrupted when a neighbour called in police and they demanded the only two guests leave the home.Supplied
Sometimes it is hard to remember where we were this time last year with the outbreak of the Delta variant,a slow vaccine rollout and restrictions upon restrictions being placed on the public. I had to remind myself of the daily headlines. Police and military were being deployed in Sydney and,at the time of my father’s hospitalisation,a lockdown was established that barred people from leaving their home except for essential activities.
Schools and businesses were closed. Borders were snapped shut across the country. Families,children and friends were unable to unite. Funerals were restricted to 10 socially distanced people,and it was forbidden to have anyone at your home,even if it was two people at a wake.
Looking back,it is almost unfathomable to recall what we lived through. This wasn’t 1984;this was Australia in 2021. I know the treatment of my father and my family during this time can be replicated tens of thousands of times with other people who have similar,often worse stories. The births,deaths and marriage listings of any newspaper from last year are a window into stories of much heartache and sorrow.
My beautiful dad went from care at a local hospital to a palliative unit. Lifelong friends were unable to say goodbye to him. My wife and children needed special permission to see him during his final days.
On the third day in palliative care,a nurse complained about his cough and demanded he have a COVID test. This was despite his test upon his admission a week earlier. He was then isolated from all of us for 36 hours while we awaited the result. He was alone.
Needless to say his cough was from the mesothelioma not COVID. He was dying and very anxious. Only my mother and I were able to be by his side when he died. My wife scrambled to the facility and was stopped at the door to check in,so missed him by minutes.
Later that night I rang all those dear friends of his,the lump in their throats breaking as I told them they would not be able to see him again. He was gone.
At some stage,our community needs to reflect on what happened during the pandemic and ask where we went right and where we went wrong. I am fully vaccinated. I was absolutely supportive of government restrictions to stem the tide of the virus. It was the knock-on effect that created a culture more like East Berlin than our supposed fun-loving,knockabout Australia that we need to analyse.
There was so much unnecessary about what happened. It is not good enough to say “we had to do what we had to do”. Common sense and compassion were too often in short supply.
There are valuable lessons for the next pandemic,whenever it arrives. Crucially,how do we maintain control but also retain respect and dignity for those living through extraordinary circumstances.
How did we get to the stage that a neighbour during the middle of the day would call police to a home in mourning? At what stage did the kindness of strangers turn into suspicious glances down apartment block hallways?
Twelve months on from his death and I wonder what could have been different if there had been more empathy and kindness encouraged by those giving daily press conference updates,reminding us that we were all in this together. Because when police jam their boot in a doorway at a wake,that’s not a functioning society. That’s a travesty.
Nicholas Pickard is a former journalist and government adviser who now works in the music industry.