I have spent four weeks applying for an essential health worker waiver as I work between Bathurst (operating theatres, ICU, emergency) and the Gold Coast.

This has been my life since COVID started and when all elective surgery ceased in March.

IN NEWS AROUND BATHURST:

Sadly, I am not a footballer, V8 driver, high-vis shirt wearer or anyone who improves point scoring for the coming election in Queensland, where my family and I reside in good times.

So, again, I am going into quarantine for 14 days at my expense - not only in outgoings, but loss of income, which will now be permanent.

In Bathurst emergency I was recently called to rescue two toddlers in preparation for helicopter transport to Sydney. I also worked many long hours doing emergencies which included several 12-hour days and one 16-hour day.

This is a vocation that I value and work that I am proficient in despite the toll it takes on one's life.

Despite pages of submissions/endorsements from a medical administrator, a senior doctor and a senior nurse, I have failed to convince the Queensland Government of my worth.

It seems I am only an essential worker in NSW.

I also work in Queensland, where I perform elective private work, but I am also available for surgical emergencies, albeit in the private hospital where I work.

There is no scientific, medical or statistical evidence that there is COVID in my place of work at Bathurst Base Hospital.

There is, unfortunately, very strong evidence that Queensland-NSW jingoism gathers strong support in the electorate north of the fictitious O-O bubble (Ormeau/Ocean Shores border line). This is a truly curious invention.

Of course, the line means little as I follow the Cowboys, Brumbies, Collingwood and Liverpool.

Though consider the Townsville boxing spectacle, which was an abomination, though another very good point-scoring opportunity in these COVID times.

It is a grotesque contradiction that we have a border closure damaging so many businesses in the pretence of not risking one Queenslander while we gloat and chest beat at a carnival where we watch a Queenslander have his brain liquified.

As my compulsory flight descends into Queensland incarceration, where I am in more danger of contracting COVID, I puzzle at the relevance of a line that prevents us from being "all in this together".