BFF-06 UN, doctors hammer Australia over refugee camps

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UN, doctors hammer Australia over refugee camps

SYDNEY, Dec 3, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Australia’s under-pressure government
received a double blow Monday from the United Nations and a leading doctors’
group over harsh treatment of refugees on off-shore island camps.

In an unusual broadside, a top official for the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees accused “bureaucrats and politicians” of overruling
doctors and putting lives at risk at camps on Nauru and Manus.

Australia holds unauthorised migrants who try to reach the island
continent by boat in “off-shore detention” — part of a harsh policy designed
to deter would-be asylum-seekers.

UNHCR’s Catherine Stubberfield decried the policy as “sold too
simplistically” and said changing it was now a matter of “basic human
treatment and decency.”

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) on Monday also threw
its voice behind those calling for the government to change course.

Around 160 people remain on the island of Nauru — including women and
children — and it is believed as many as 600 men are still in transition
centres on Manus after the Australian-run camp there was closed late last
year.

The minority government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has quietly
agreed to transfer children off Nauru, but is under fierce pressure to close
it completely.

Doctor and independent member of parliament Kerryn Phelps on Monday put
forward legislation requiring the temporary transfer from Nauru or Manus of
anyone assessed as needing medical treatment as well as the temporary
transfer of all children and their families from Nauru.

Eyewitnesses — including AFP journalists — have reported a dire
situation on Nauru, with families living under constant fear of loved ones
committing suicide.

On Monday, Medecins Sans Frontieres also reported that almost a third of
the people they had treated on Nauru before being expelled by the government
in October had reported attempted suicide.

A dozen patients, the organisation said, had been diagnosed with
“resignation syndrome” — a condition that causes people to withdraw into
themselves in an almost comatose state.

David Isaacs of the RACP, a paediatrician who treated children on Nauru in
2015, said access to medical care “must be determined by a doctor – not a
politician”.

“There is a medical crisis in offshore detention,” said Isaacs. “It is a
crisis that is entirely preventable. The government can act to end it.”

Polls show that a large number of Australians would like to bring the
remaining children off Nauru, but are split on whether the broader population
should be brought to Australia.

The tough offshore detention policy is popular with Morrison’s right-wing
base, which he needs to shore up dwindling support in parliament ahead of
national elections due to be held by May.

Morrison has argued the policy deters people smugglers and saves lives.

“There are more medical professionals on Nauru, than there are children,”
he claimed last month.

But the latest volley from the UNHCR will only add to the pressure.

“Australia retains responsibility for those it has relocated under so-
called ‘offshore processing’,” warned Stubberfield.

She suggested the government policy was partly responsible for the death
of 24-year-old Hamid Khazaei, who died of sepsis contracted on Manus Island.

“Had he been evacuated to Australia within 24 hours of developing severe
sepsis, Khazaei would have survived.”

BSS/AFP/MSY/0851 Hrs