Health workers at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital are refusing to discharge children back to detention centres over concerns for their health.
Staff yesterday held a protest to demand the Federal Government halt its policy of holding children in detention.
“We see a whole range of physical, mental, emotional and social disturbances that are really severe,” one doctor said.
“We have no hope of improving these things when we have to discharge our patients back into detention.”
Approximately 100 children are locked up in immigration detention centres within Australia.
More than 400 staff members from the Melbourne hospital gathered at a protest yesterday to show their support for the cause, demanding the government remove children from the detention facilities.
The protest was held despite two laws passed by Federal Parliament earlier this year threatening health workers who complained about the conditions of immigration detention centres with up to two years in jail.
Victoria's Health Minister Jill Hennessy has thrown her support behind doctors at the Royal Children's Hospital who have refused to discharge asylum seeker children back into detention.
Doctors at the hospital are concerned about the welfare of their dozens of patients and say it would be unethical to discharge them to unsafe conditions that could compromise their health.
"I'm extremely proud to be the health minister in a state where its doctors and nurses are putting the interest of children first," Ms Hennessy said on Sunday.
"If the staff of the Royal Children's Hospital come to the clinical view that it is not in the interests of those children to go back into detention, then we will support them."
"I can only imagine what it's like to be a clinician, to treat a child, then have to reflect upon the health consequences of putting that child back into detention," she said.
Staff yesterday held a protest to demand the Federal Government halt its policy of holding children in detention.
“We see a whole range of physical, mental, emotional and social disturbances that are really severe,” one doctor said.
“We have no hope of improving these things when we have to discharge our patients back into detention.”
Approximately 100 children are locked up in immigration detention centres within Australia.
More than 400 staff members from the Melbourne hospital gathered at a protest yesterday to show their support for the cause, demanding the government remove children from the detention facilities.
The protest was held despite two laws passed by Federal Parliament earlier this year threatening health workers who complained about the conditions of immigration detention centres with up to two years in jail.
Victoria's Health Minister Jill Hennessy has thrown her support behind doctors at the Royal Children's Hospital who have refused to discharge asylum seeker children back into detention.
Doctors at the hospital are concerned about the welfare of their dozens of patients and say it would be unethical to discharge them to unsafe conditions that could compromise their health.
"I'm extremely proud to be the health minister in a state where its doctors and nurses are putting the interest of children first," Ms Hennessy said on Sunday.
"If the staff of the Royal Children's Hospital come to the clinical view that it is not in the interests of those children to go back into detention, then we will support them."
"I can only imagine what it's like to be a clinician, to treat a child, then have to reflect upon the health consequences of putting that child back into detention," she said.
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