Deaths in Detention Exposed

Andra Jackson
The Age
21 Nov 2006

AT LEAST 10 people have died while held in immigration detention, a self-appointed public inquiry has been told.

The 18-month inquiry into detention centres found sick detainees sometimes had to wait days for medical treatment and weeks to see a doctor.

The co-convener of the inquiry, Professor Linda Briskman from Curtin University in Western Australia, said the inquiry had been told of at least 10 people who had died in detention since 1999, "but people are generally speaking of more than 10 deaths".

Among the deaths detailed in the inquiry's first report was that of a Thai woman, Phuongton Simplee, a heroin user who died in Villawood detention centre in 2001 of malnutrition. Despite losing a dramatic seven kilograms over just three days, management did not realise she needed hospital treatment.

Fatima Erfani, a mother of three detained on Christmas Island, died in January 2003 after being treated incorrectly. She was suffering from high blood pressure but was instead treated for a migraine and died from cerebral bleeding.

Tongan Viliami Tanginoa, who overstayed his visa, dived to his death from the top of a basketball hoop at Maribyrnong detention centre in December 2000.

Professor Briskman said yesterday details of the other deaths would be covered in the inquiry's second report next year.

The Age is aware of at least two other deaths in detention.

The report documented an attempt by a 12-year-old boy to hang himself.

A former nurse working for detention centre operator ACM told the inquiry a doctor attended Baxter detention centre five days a week but detainees could only have appointments on the day allocated for their compound. Sometimes the wait for an appointment on the "right day" could be up to three weeks, she said.

The People's Inquiry was set up by Professor Briskman and Professor Chris Goddard, director of the National Research Centre for the Prevention of Child Abuse at Monash University, on behalf of the Australian Council of Heads of Schools of Social Work.

It followed concern about the narrow focus of a Federal Government-appointed inquiry into the wrongful detention of the mentally ill Cornelia Rau.

The People's Inquiry, which has held public hearings around Australia and taken 200 written submissions, also found "needless cruelty" in how the detention centres were run.

Professor Briskman said former detainees, detention centre workers, visiting health workers and others reported a catalogue of petty cruelty, including people being addressed by their file number, repeatedly being woken at night for head counts, a four-month delay in posting mail to families overseas, and a lack of toilets (just two toilets for 700 people at Woomera).

The report also covered claims of beatings and humiliating actions by guards, including singing to Iraqis after a protection visa rejection: "I'm leaving on a jet plane, goin' back to see Saddam Hussein."

In his submission, Professor Goddard wrote that "detention centres generated universal mental ill-health never seen outside a psychiatric hospital".

An Immigration Department spokeswoman said: "Deaths in detention have been very few."



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