A Current Affair reporter Pippa Bradshaw lost her father and sister last year – with the double tragedy made all the more heartbreaking by issues she faced with border restrictions and quarantine as she made desperate efforts to say goodbye. Twelve months on, Bradshaw remains frustrated families around Australia continue to face the same pain.
OPINION: In a year where we've all grown, adapted and changed, COVID-19 has taught us how precious life and family is.
But I fear our politicians have been so quick to score points in a race to eliminate the virus and they've learnt nothing at all.
For anyone who has lost a loved one over the past 18 months, they know the trauma that we're seeing all too often in the media – families desperate to say their final goodbyes in a country broken by lockdowns and border closures.
Mark Kilian was desperate to see his father one last time in Queensland, but was treated as a political hot potato until sanity prevailed, just in time.
It is a fate you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. But, for many, border closures and bureaucracy has kept us from our loved ones in their final hours.
'When someone passes, everyone is willing to offer their help, thoughts and prayers. I can tell you, the only thing people want is their loved one back. Our leaders can't give us that, but they can give some of our returning travellers those precious last moments'
As the world began to shut down in March 2020, my father was terminally ill with a brain tumor in Canberra.
When Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk tweeted: "Cabinet has decided to close Queensland's borders" on March 23, with no other information, I was already south of Grafton, making the 13-hour drive to Canberra for fear I would get stuck away from my family.
I counted myself lucky, that I was able to be with my family in my father's final days.
Then again in July last year, a nightmare far beyond any conception unfolded.
A phone call in the middle of the night would change my life forever.
My older sister, Penelope, who was living in New York, had been taken to hospital by ambulance after collapsing minutes after calling 911 complaining of a headache.
She had a massive bleed in her brain and surgery was needed immediately.
I had to give verbal permission over the phone, as the American doctor told me I should really try and get there as soon as I could because "this is as bad as it gets".
Easier said than done in a pandemic, when the international borders are closed.
As I sat at my dining room table in the middle of the night, waiting to hear if my sister had survived the surgery, I navigated the Australian Border Force's website to apply for an exemption to leave the country.
Of course, I needed supporting documentation from my sister's treating doctor, as to why, I should be allowed to leave.
'We're a country that prides itself on mateship, yet we can't help our own in the most dire of circumstances'
I knew there was a 10am flight the next day from Sydney I could be on but, I needed the exemption before I could book the flight.
The next few hours felt like a lifetime. The surgeon finally called back around 3am. It was bad news, Pen too had a brain tumor, which was undiagnosed, which had led to the bleed. The damage was "catastrophic". There was no chance my sister would ever wake up.
I had to ask if they could please try their best to keep Pen alive until I got there – not knowing when that might be.
My exemption to travel was approved, but not soon enough to get the flight the next morning. A gruelling 24 hours later I was able to board my flight to New York.
Unfortunately, it wasn't soon enough. My beautiful sister passed away while I was in the air between Sydney and San Francisco.
My step-mother, who had been texting me updates throughout the flight, then had the monumental task of messaging me the heartbreaking news, Pen couldn't hold on any longer.
Not a day goes by that I don't think, if I had been able to fly just 24 hours earlier, I would have been there to hold my sister's hand, like I was for dad, when she took her final breaths.
Now nearly 12 months on, I feel the wounds of that trauma re-opening every time we see a case of someone not able to say goodbye on the news.
Don't get me wrong, we should be hearing these stories. It's outrageous that 18 months into this pandemic a solution has not been found.
It shouldn't take the media to jump up and down every time for our governments to do the right thing.
Why is it when we have Australian citizens returning, fully vaccinated and posting negative covid tests, we won't help them?
We're a country that prides itself on mateship, yet we can't help our own in the most dire of circumstances.
If we can currently allow unvaccinated staff to work in our hospitals, surely we can allow families, most even vaccinated, to say goodbye.
When someone passes, everyone is willing to offer their help, thoughts and prayers. I can tell you, the only thing people want is their loved one back. Our leaders can't give us that, but they can give some of our returning travellers those precious last moments.
It's about time our politicians show some heart and imagined for just one second, if it were them, and what they would want their leaders to do.
We can't continue this chorus of heartbreak when surely there are solutions.
Allowing people to see their dying relatives should be the rule, not the exception.
