Australian GPs lambast ‘deliberate government policy which is causing the pain and suffering of these children’.
Australian doctors are ramping up their campaign to have children in detention immediately removed from Nauru.
Australian Medical Association paediatric representative Dr Paul Bauert, who has treated patients on Nauru, said it was an “unconscionable” situation that could be easily avoided.
Health professionals are calling on the government to give the vulnerable children urgent support.
“This is the only situation I’ve come across where it is deliberate government policy which is causing the pain and suffering of these children,” Bauert told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
The AMA has been lobbying the government to change policy on Nauru, but just last month the prime minister, Scott Morrison, rebuffed a plea from the peak doctors’ association.
“I will not put at risk any element of Australia’s border protection policy,” Morrison said.
About 5% of all registered doctors in Australia have signed a letter that was being delivered to Morrison in Canberra on Monday.
Almost 6,000 doctors are demanding the government remove the 80 children from Nauru because of serious mental and physical health concerns.
Bauert said almost all the children in detention on Nauru are traumatised.
“Many are damaged already, but we don’t want this damage to be permanent,” he said. “They need to be assessed and treated as a matter of urgency.
“It’s a miracle we haven’t had a death already.
Picture: Australian Medical Association’s paediatric representative Dr Paul Bauert has treated patients on Nauru. He said many children are ‘damaged’ and ‘need to be assessed and treated as a matter of urgency’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP