Subject: Medical help for refugees
Dear Mr. Conaghan,
In
recent weeks, I have been deeply concerned to read about the treatment
of refugees from Manus and Nauru who have been brought to Australia for
urgent medical treatment. You will be aware, I’m sure, that the great
majority of them have been brought to Australia to receive treatment for
serious mental health problems, which are intrinsically related to
their feelings of hopelessness and despair after up to six years in
indefinite detention.
Any
professional in the field of psychiatry will tell us that a person who
is being treated for mental illness needs to be in a place where they
feel safe, and where they can see the same practitioner over an extended
period of time. That, however, does not represent the experience of so
many of the refugees who have been transferred to Australia for
treatment. To the contrary, they find themselves confined to poor
quality accommodation, under constant surveillance by SERCO guards, and
fearful for their wellbeing. Some of them have been moved around from
place to place, seemingly arbitrarily, rendering continuity of care and
treatment impossible. One detainee states that she and her family spent
six weeks in the Brisbane detention centre transit accommodation and
were then sent to a hotel in the Brisbane CBD for another eight weeks.
Afterwards, they were sent to Adelaide for almost three months. Since
then, they have been transferred to Melbourne, where, to date, they have
spent more than two months.
How
can seriously unwell people be expected to recover from the trauma of
fleeing their country and of indefinite detention when our government
appears to be treating them with such callous indifference? It looks
like cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
I
would be most grateful if you would take up the matter of this very
poor treatment of refugees brought to Australia for medical intervention
with the Home Affairs Department. Please ask the Department to take
seriously the needs of these people who deserve the appropriate support
and intervention to help them recover from their traumas.
Yours sincerely,
Mike Griffin
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