Doctors and refugee advocacy groups have raised concerns about the hospital discharge of an at-risk refugee back into immigration detention.
The 32-year-old man from Iran spent roughly seven years on Manus Island in detention, before being brought to Kangaroo Point in Australia due to health problems and later transferred to the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation.
In the past four months, his mental health began to deteriorate considerably, until he was moved to the mental health unit at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital late last month, according to Refugee Action Coalition spokesman, Ian Rintoul.
After the man arrived at the hospital, the Doctors for Refugees group wrote to hospital management to warn them to carefully consider the risks of discharging him back to immigration detention.
In a letter dated 30 November, the group’s founder and president, Dr Barri Phatarfod, warned the hospital that detention facilities were “largely unsafe and inappropriate post-hospital discharge locations where adequate continuity of care cannot be obtained”.
“We commend the health professionals at Lady Cilento Hospital in 2016 and other hospital doctors around the country who stood firm to prevent their refugee patients being discharged to unsafe and unsuitable detention environments post-hospital treatment,” she wrote.
“While we are mindful of the competing political interests and possible attempts by external agencies to override the expert and considered advice of medical professionals, D4R supports the position of the [Australian Medical Association] that doctors should have ‘reasonable professional autonomy and clinical independence without undue external influence.’”
The hospital was preparing to discharge the refugee back to Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation on Friday and Phatarfod confirmed that evening he had been returned to immigration detention. The hospital has not responded to requests for comment.
Phatarfod said medical practitioners had an obligation to make recommendations about a patient’s post-discharge environment suitability, regardless of whether such recommendations were followed.
“We have absolute confidence in the health system in Australia and we are operating on the assumption of professionalism and confidence,” she said.
“But the doctors that we speak with seem to have no idea that they are perfectly entitled, in fact many people would say obligated to, make a recommendation. The fact that their recommendation may or may not be followed up on is another matter.
“The onus on them to state that returning this man back to immigration detention, with all of its attendant triggers, such as the high fences, the heavy security, the pat downs, the isolation from the community, will quite foreseeably make this man relapse.”
There was a small protest outside the hospital on Thursday evening, according to Rintoul.
“People don’t get over seven years of torture in a few days,” he said. “He should not be released into the detention environment that is the cause of his mental distress.”
Australian Border Force was also contacted for comment.
