The Queensland government will set up a unit to deal with interstate residents who need specialist healthcare after coming under sustained criticism about border closures.
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Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been panned by local, interstate and federal political rivals over the impact of her state's hard border on northern NSW residents who require specialist medical care in Queensland.
She says Queensland Health will set up new unit with a hotline to streamline medical exemptions for NSW patients by the end of this week.
"We are not going to deny emergency treatment to people in NSW and we are not going to deny specialist appointments to people who need the specialist appointments in Queensland," Ms Palaszczuk said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates says the new unit is a clear admission that Labor has failed patients.
"I'm disappointed that Annastacia Palaszczuk has still not apologised for her comment that Queensland hospitals are for only for Queenslanders," Bates said in a statement.
"The premier's comment lacked compassion and common sense and she should acknowledge that.
"Our enemy is the virus - not other Australians."
Queensland recorded just a single new case of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to Monday with Health Minister Steven Miles saying a cluster in the southeast was "under control".
All of the state's 27 active cases are connected to the cluster at Queensland's Corrective Services Academy in Wacol and the Brisbane youth detention centre, with no further community transmission detected.
Mr Miles says the new case is a close contact of a known person who became infected, and they're believed to have been in the community for just two days before going into quarantine.
"This is really the best we can hope for - very small numbers of people already identified as contacts and already in quarantine, and therefore of relatively low risk of continued spread," Mr Miles added.
The health minister said 6865 had been conducted in 24 hours to 9am on Monday, down from more than 10,500 in the previous 24 hours.
Health restrictions remain in place preventing more than 10 people gathering in Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, South Burnett and Goondawindi without a COVID-19 safety plan.
Mr Miles conceded restrictions could remain for up to four weeks.
Meanwhile, Ms Palaszczuk is yet to see any proposal for a national COVID-19 hotspot system, which could help ease state border restrictions.
The hotspot proposal is due to be discussed at the National Cabinet meeting on Friday.
Australian Associated Press