Coronavirus: Medics move in to treat evacuees
Christmas Island’s immigration centre has been transformed into a quarantine station for Australians fleeing the coronavirus.
Christmas Island’s infamous immigration detention centre, where asylum-seekers sewed their eyes and lips shut and the visiting room became a ward for the suicidal, has been transformed into a quarantine station for Australian families fleeing the coronavirus.
The Australian Defence Force and a medical team of 23 doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists and a paediatrician from Ausmat were preparing to staff the centre on Sunday for at least the next two weeks.
They will be on site while potentially hundreds of Australian citizens from Wuhan wait out the coronavirus’s 14-day incubation period. The evacuees are expected to arrive on the Indian Ocean territory on Monday.
Australians who opted to fly out of Wuhan were told they would not be permitted on the flight if they had a high temperature. The Australian understands the cut-off was set at 37.5C. Once on Christmas Island, the arrivals will be taken in buses to the centre, about 20 minutes by car from the settlement.
They will be tested for coronavirus in blue medical tents that were due to be erected on Sunday on the grassed oval that is known as the “green heart” of the centre. This was once the scene of hunger strikes and protests that escalated to fiery riots.
Dan Holmes, the Ausmat team leader, said clinicians had the skills and equipment to treat anyone who fell ill in the centre. It was possible that a person who fell ill could be isolated within the centre but others would not need to stay for a further 14 days.
“If one person is sick it doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is back to day one,” Dr Holmes said.
In a chapel above Christmas Island’s Flying Fish Cove on Sunday, local Catholic Church leader Ron De Cruz led a prayer for the imminent arrivals and the health workers. “That the present crises may be quickly resolved, we pray to the Lord,” he said.
Mr De Cruz and his wife, Susan, opened their home to asylum-seekers during the sustained wave of boat arrivals between 2008 and 2013. As “approved visitors”, they took detainees on day trips and to their house for dinner.
That cannot happen this time. Christmas Island administrator Natasha Griggs has told residents in a communique that Australians quarantined at the centre will not move around the island or use facilities used by locals.
The Australian has been told no Christmas Island residents will work inside the centre. Military and medical staff who have direct contact with the Australians in quarantine will stay at the detention centre with them.
The centre still has recreation facilities once used by asylum-seekers, including a gym and basketball court that have been maintained. Evacuees will have internet access and children’s toys and activities were flown in on Sunday.
It was not clear how freely evacuees would be able to move inside the centre.
“We are very sympathetic to the plight of people. They did not plan this,” Dr Holmes said.
“Nobody’s going to be separating children from adults.
“But clearly we need to make sure people don’t get sick and that’s part of the thought process that goes into this.”
Christmas Island’s detention centre has never been used as a quarantine station. Infectious diseases were occasionally detected among asylum-seekers held there. This included tuberculosis and typhoid, and there were no known outbreaks in the community.
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