A long-term detainee in South Australia’s notorious Baxter Detention Centre has developed symptoms of psychosis, which remain severe despite hospitalisation in Port Augusta Hospital last week. The man, who has been locked in detention for 4 years, has been returned to Baxter where he is being kept in the Medical Unit. Despite acknowledging that the man should have specialist psychiatric care, he has been told that he cannot be transferred to Adelaide’s Glenside Hospital because “there is no room there”.
“I have known this man for one year now, and have gradually seen him become more and more withdrawn and depressed. His friends have said that he was becoming increasingly isolative, and had begun to completely lose touch with reality. He has called his family overseas a number of times and said that he was in an army camp and was being attacked by soldiers. His family were extremely distressed by his mental state” said Mira Wroblewski from Rural Australians for Refugees.
“I spoke to him yesterday, and I am extremely worried about him” said Ms Wroblewski. “Even after a short stay in Port Augusta Hospital, he is very clearly showing signs of psychosis. He said that his mother and sister are there with him, and that he could see them- even though they are not in Australia. He is not aware of his surroundings and others who have visited him have said that he has trouble recognising his friends. I visited him in Baxter only a month ago- and he is unrecognisable now.”
“This man clearly needs specialist psychiatric care in a psychiatric hospital. It is just not good enough to say that there is ‘no room’. The government’s policy of long-term mandatory detention is damaging people in a way that is tragic. This is not a problem that is going to go away. More beds in psychiatric facilities need to be opened immediately for people from Baxter”.
Commenting on the announcement by Minister for Immigration Amanda Vanstone that two full-time psychiatric nurses will be appointed at the Baxter detention centre in South Australia and there will be increased visits from a psychiatrist, Ms Wroblewski said “There is no point in increased visits by psychiatrists when the Department of Immigration has repeatedly ignored the advice of the psychiatrists already employed by them. I have read psychiatrists reports saying that various individuals should be released from detention immediately, and two years later they still had not been acted on”.
“In the short term the Government must guarantee an unlimited number of psychiatric beds for these people. In the longer term, RAR heartily applauds the news that Liberal backbencher Petro Georgiou is planning two private members bills, which would release children and their families from detention centres and release asylum seekers who have been in detention for 12 months. Mr Georgiou also stated that those found to be refugees would be given permanent residency, rather than temporary protection visas.
We strongly urge all Government members to support these bills”
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