Denied: ‘One last chance to give dying mum a cuddle’

I don’t think of her the way she is now, lying prone in a bed a shell of her former self barely able to open her eyes and no longer able to eat or take any water.My mum, Teresa Florez, has suffered from the unforgiving disease of dementia for many years and last week her doctor announced to us she had officially entered the “palliative care” stage of life. My seven siblings and I know exactly what that means, in February last year we watched our beloved dad slip into palliative care and from this world in just a matter of weeks.We know the end can be cruel and swift.And it’s made worse by the fact that our mum lives in Hobart.As soon as we heard those two words – palliative care – my Sydney siblings and I lodged an application with the Tasmanian Government to allow us to enter the state on compassionate grounds. It’s hard to explain in under 200 words why you want to give your mum one last cuddle, why you want to whisper in her ear that she was a wonderful mother and tell her one last time that you love her.It took less than two days to receive an electronic response: “Request to undertake travel – UNSUCCESSFUL” – capital letters and all.I have seen many people in this exact situation over the last 18 months thanks to the pandemic which threw down state borders and forced us into lockdown. I have seen desperate children plead with state governments to let them have one last moment with a dying parent only to be denied. I have seen those same governments allow football players and their families, actors and reality television stars from overseas enter their states. But less than two weeks after Sydney welcomed back the small freedoms it once took for granted, being denied entry to another state to be by the side of a dying parent was a bitter pill to swallow. Surely being with a parent in their final moments trumps everything else?If this response had come three months ago, I would have understood. I wholeheartedly believed in the need to restrict our movement in the name of keeping ourselves and our community safe from Covid, so much so that some friends joked I was a ‘lockdown loser’ because I steadfastly refused sneaky invitations to visit other households and insisted my kids do the same. And I raced to get myself and my family vaccinated as soon as we were eligible because I knew vaccination was our only way out of the lockdown and border closures we found ourselves living with. Which is why I cannot understand why, as the country and indeed the world, is opening up and forging ahead in our new Covid reality, there are still states in Australia who steadfastly refuse to allow us to move freely around the country.Two weeks after Sydney’s lockdown ended and we came together as a city again, new Covid cases have remained stable, proving our climbing vaccination rates are keeping us safe.So why then won’t the Tasmanian government allow my sisters and I one last chance to see our mum before she dies? We have all been fully vaccinated and we are happy to have as many Covid tests as are necessary to prove we are not a threat to public health. We do not intend to be out mixing in the Tasmanian community, we simply want to be arms-length from our mum’s bed.NED-1859 State of our bordersMy family – mum, dad, six sisters and one brother – arrived in Hobart from Peru in 1971. So overwhelmed and thankful was my dad that they had been allowed to make a new life in this wonderful country on the other side of the world, he wanted to name me Tasmania when I was born two years later – true story. I am thankful to my sisters for talking him out of it, I suspect it would have been a tougher name to grow up with than Mercedes.And so now I beg the Tasmanian government, and in particular Deputy State Controller Donna Adams who has the authority to grant or deny us access to her state, to make a safe and calculated concession to their Covid laws and allow my sisters and I one last chance to be with our mum.I know if she were able, my mum would give Ms Adams a playful nudge and send one of her cheeky giggles her way because my mum could charm her way out of any situation.Almost any situation.Mercedes Maguire is a News Corp Australia reporterNAT – Stay Informed – Social Media