One in four children on Nauru has attempted suicide or expressed suicidal thoughts
A CONFIDENTIAL list based on medical assessments of 52 refugee children on Nauru reveals one in four has attempted suicide or expressed suicidal thoughts while seven others are said to require evacuation for immediate medical treatment.
NSW
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A CONFIDENTIAL list based on medical assessments of 52 refugee children on Nauru reveals one in four has attempted suicide or expressed suicidal thoughts.
One infant is not responding to sound or sight and may have a brain tumour requiring urgent medical assessment, another has blood in their urine, and another cannot walk normally, according to doctors.
The confidential list, compiled by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and presented to Immigration Minister David Coleman yesterday, reveals seven children are considered by doctors to require urgent removal from Nauru for medical treatment.
After The Daily Telegraph in August revealed 119 children were living stateless on Nauru and many had been born there, more than 60 children have been evacuated off the island after legal interventions, which in most cases were orders to provide urgent medical attention.
An 18-year-old girl was medically evacuated with the serious bloodstream infection septicaemia on the weekend and a further 11 children have been flown off the island this week.
Leading paediatrician Dr Paul Bauert said the baby who was not responding to sight and sound may be deaf or blind and never had the proper assessment at birth, or could have an undiagnosed tumour behind the eye.
“Both of these require further assessment,” he said. Dr Bauert said the number of treating medical professionals on Nauru had dwindled rapidly in recent weeks, with Medicins Sans Frontiers doctors leaving the Pacific island and no Australian doctors staying behind.
“It’s a miracle a child has not already died,” he said.
Mr Coleman said there were 65 medical professionals on Nauru “contracted by the Australian government to provide health services on Nauru, including 33 mental health professionals”.
“Decisions about medical transfers are made on a case-by-case basis under the guidance of a Commonwealth medical officer,” Mr Coleman’s spokeswoman said.
Crossbencher Andrew Wilkie is introducing a private members’ bill to parliament to evacuate the remaining 52 children, including three-year-old girl Melanie, who appeared along with brother Liam in The Daily Telegraph’s original expose in August.
Kerryn Phelps, who remains ahead in the count from Saturday’s Wentworth by-election, has declared immediate evacuation of the children her first priority in parliament.
One child on the list is described as having “anaemia and regularly collapses, suffers from bed wetting”, while their sibling, a toddler, has “severe and longstanding dermatological condition”.