More than 800 cruise ship passengers and crew members are heading home to Germany on chartered flights while 41 others infected with the coronavirus have been admitted to an Australian hospital after an argument over where they should be treated among local medical personnel.
Health authorities initially wanted to send the sick passengers aboard the cruise ship Artania to the Hollywood and Bethesda hospitals in the city of Perth.
But nurses and doctors’ groups argued that those hospitals were not equipped to cope with the disease.
The federal government then struck a deal with the private Joondalup Health Campus, which was already treating patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
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