By Nicole Hasham
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Australian politicians who support sending children back to Nauru should consider "if their daughter or wife was trying to bring up a baby there", a leading paediatrician says, claiming GPs on the island missed potentially fatal illnesses in children.
David Isaacs, a Sydney-based paediatrician, said asylum seekers and refugees on the remote island faced hot, humid and uncomfortable conditions.
"The families are in desperate straits really," he said.
"I'd love it if the politicians would think about what it would be like if their daughter or wife was trying to bring up a baby there."
He said health care was "substandard" including GPs "of variable quality, in my experience, who when I was there were missing quite important infectious diagnoses that were potentially fatal".
Dr Isaacs said he encountered one child with typhoid and another with tuberculosis who had not been diagnosed.
"This is a disaster waiting to happen … I couldn't really countenance sending any child back there," he said.
One Iranian asylum seeker at Nauru, who did not wish to be named, told Fairfax Media that following the court verdict he had "no hope for everything".
"Nauru is very small … and the weather is over 40 degrees. There is nothing for the adults, nothing for the children," he said.
The man and his wife have three children, including a baby.
"[My older children] are very upset, they don't go to school. For how long they can stay in the tent?"
A former worker on Nauru who has remained in close contact with asylum seekers and refugees said they saw the High Court case as their last hope, and reacted to the decision with "disbelief and despair". One asylum seeker had told her "we are all broken now".
The former worker reported receiving messages from children at Nauru before the verdict such as: "I am nearly dead. Only [the] High Court can save me" and "see you in Australia next week".
"I was extremely worried for most of those in contact with me who have developed mental health conditions on Nauru and have a history of self harm there," the source said.
"I have also been distressed for the families in onshore detention after [Mr] Dutton's threat to return them. I don't think he has any idea of the mental grenade his words were for those parents of children still suffering from their experiences on Nauru."
The former worker said many people were "at the end of their tethers after three years" on the island and, with their legal hopes dashed, "I don't know what will help them endure the indignity, uncertainty and arbitrary cruelty of Nauru now."