Baby Asha will be transferred to Brisbane community detention

An asylum seeker baby currently staying at a hospital in Brisbane will be moved to community detention, but could still end up being returned to Nauru, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says.

Key points:

• Baby Asha to be transferred to community detention by tomorrow
• Asha's family could still be deported to Nauru
• AMA calls for immediate release of all children from immigration detention
• One-year-old Asha remains at Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital after doctors refused to release her until a safe home was found.

Asha had been treated at the hospital after she was injured in immigration detention on Nauru last month.

Mr Dutton said immigration officials had reached an agreement with doctors that Asha and her family would be transferred to community detention in Brisbane, but that they would receive no special treatment and may end up back in Nauru if they were not deemed to be legitimate refugees.

A short time after Mr Dutton faced the media, Queensland Health announced the hospital would discharge Asha "within the next 24 hours".

Children's Health Queensland chief executive Fionnagh Dougan said the Immigration Department advised there was "no imminent plan for the family to return to Nauru".

"Children's Health Queensland is currently working with the department on finalising arrangements for the safe relocation of the family," Ms Dougan said.

"In recent days, the child and her mother moved to family accommodation within the hospital because the patient no longer required treatment in the burns unit."

Asha's fate has been the focal point of a 10-day protest outside the hospital, with dozens of protesters continuing to rally outside the building's entrance today. Brian Owler, AMA president said:

"That's what we have proposed all along but at some point, if people have matters finalised in Australia, they will be returning to Nauru." Professor Brian Owler called for the immediate release of all children from immigration detention into the Australian community.

"We know from the Human Rights Commission that there is no doubt that having children in detention is harmful,"

"We want to see a statutory body created that actually is able to report independently on the healthcare provision to asylum seekers, that has the right to inspect and report to Parliament openly to provide the transparency that this country needs to know what's being done and what's not.

"Finally, we said that if we can't provide the sort of heath care that Australian citizens would expect of the mainland, that the Government has to revisit its policies on this issue."