Queensland Health Minister investigates 'distressing' brain cancer exemption case

Health Minister Steven Miles has been asked to investigate reports Queensland Health told a brain cancer patient to catch a taxi or Uber to receive chemotherapy treatment while in hotel quarantine in Brisbane.

The man's wife, Wendy Child, told Channel Nine her husband had received brain surgery in Sydney last week.

She said he was not granted an exemption to isolate at home.

Ms Child said Queensland Health gave her husband permission to travel to and from the hotel for medical appointments via a taxi or rideshare service, but only if he sat in the back seat and with the windows down.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk labelled the situation "very distressing".

Ms Palaszczuk said she directed Mr Miles to "look at it" immediately.

"He's going to be speaking with the paramedics and the ambulance service ensuring that transports can happen," Ms Palaszczuk said.

"It's an awful situation that people are going through and I've asked the Health Minister to address it."

Mr Miles said he was "concerned" with the travel advice the man was given and admitted it was not acceptable.

"I've asked for an ambulance to be made available to them to do those transfers," he said.

Mr Miles said he had spoken with the Chief Health Officer about the case and was assured the man and his wife would be given "better supports".

"The person concerned and their support person are able to be in quarantine together, they are not in the regular hotel quarantine in that they have access to the medi-hotel," he said.

"If the medi-hotel is insufficient ... then we will make available to them a room in one of our hospitals where they can have full access to the entire range of services."

NSW border reopening could be delayed

It comes as the state recorded zero new cases of coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with seven infections remaining active.

Ms Palaszczuk said it was "absolutely terrific news for Queensland".

A total of 4,147 tests were carried out in the past 24 hours.

Mr Miles said Dr Young was "closely monitoring" new suspected locally acquired COVID-19 cases reported in New South Wales today.

"We of course hope they can be linked to existing outbreaks and that they're not a new outbreak," he said.

"We look forward to further information about those."

Queensland was on track to reopen its borders to the rest of New South Wales on November 1 if the southern state could maintain no community transmission for 28 days.

New South Wales had previously recorded 11 consecutive days without a new infection that could not be linked to other known cases.

Mr Miles said it was too soon to declare whether the 28-day timer would be reset.

"It's too early to say that — there's certainly enough reason to be concerned," Mr Miles said.

"We hope that there isn't clusters out there that they haven't been able to find."