An Adelaide man who left the state to attend the funeral of his sister and newborn nephew in Canberra says he remains stranded after enduring what he described as the “worst week” of his life.

Key points:

  • Idris Martin’s sister and newborn nephew died earlier this month
  • He attended their funeral in Canberra
  • There is no provision for exemptions for SA residents returning after interstate funerals

Idris Martin is now one of about 8,000 South Australian residents awaiting to return home.

Mr Martin lost his sister, Dahlia Martin, to complications during the birth of her son Silas on October 1.

Silas died seven days after his mother, on October 8.

Mr Martin and his sister’s mother-in-law are now looking to return to Adelaide to organise a wake for family members who were unable to attend the funeral.

They applied to return to South Australia on Monday.

Only people with exemptions from SA Health can enter from NSW, Victoria or the ACT, which are all going through COVID-19 outbreaks.

Compassionate exemptions can be granted for people looking to enter South Australia for a funeral.

Idris Martin, pictured with his mother, says he has just experienced the worst week of his life.

“But it makes no allowances for if you’ve had to go interstate for a funeral and then you’ve got to come back to your family,” Mr Martin said.

“The only way that we could submit our applications was as returning South Australian residents, which I was aware would immediately put us at the bottom of the pile.”

Mr Martin also reached out to Premier Steven Marshall and Health Minister Stephen Wade, hoping he would be granted an exemption to return.

But he said he had not received any response.

“It’s a lot of dead air … it feels like no-one really knows what the right answers are to any of the questions we have.”

This morning, Mr Wade defended the existing arrangements saying it was imperative that SA Health remained prudent when assessing applications.

“We’ve got a significant number of people who want to come back into South Australia, he said.

“We’re increasing the resources to process those applications but I want to stress that those people are coming from high transmission zones. So 8,000 applications represent 8,000 possible cases that might lead to an outbreak.

“We cannot afford the risk of an outbreak in South Australia particularly now as we’re entering the final lap of the vaccination program.

“We do prioritise compassionate-grounds cases.”

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