What: Tasmanian health professionals protest for asylum seeker and refugee rights
When: 9am, Saturday 5th November
Where: Parliament Lawns, Parliament of Tasmania, Salamanca Pl, Hobart
Tasmanian health professionals will protest at the Parliament of Tasmania this Saturday, demanding humane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, and in opposition to the prolonged detention of asylum seekers.
The rally is part of a national protest, organised by Doctors for Refugees, which aims to draw attention to increased evidence that asylum seekers are being permanently harmed by harsh treatment in centres.
Respected local physician Dr Bryan Walpole, former President of the Tasmanian AMA and previous Director of the Royal Hobart Hospital Emergency Department, spent periods of time working on both Manus and Nauru. He said, “This is about human beings, their health and welfare. They have done nothing wrong.”
“Imagine what it would be like if you suffered constant persecution, escaped to find a future for your family, then end up in a hell hole like Manus Island for 3 years, living in a tent with 100 others?”
“The recent report from the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child slammed the lack of health services available for asylum-seeking and refugee children and a report by Amnesty International has revealed that mental illness and self-harm are shockingly commonplace. Until last week doctors were gagged from speaking out by the Border Act. There is a loss of trust in the government to provide ethical care for these people. Independent oversight of healthcare and conditions for asylum seekers is urgently required.”
Emergency physician and spokesperson for Doctors for Refugees, Dr David Berger, said, “it is no longer ethically or morally acceptable to do nothing – as doctors, with an ethical duty to advocate for the best interests of our patients, we must draw a line.”
“We call on the government to close the camps and end the mandatory and indefinite detention of asylum seekers, especially children.
“Doctors in Australia are making a mass public statement of revulsion at the cruel oppression towards the innocent of our nation’s refugee policy.
“Refugees are human beings under our care – they must receive medical care comparable with that of the Australian public.
“It is our duty to protest the brutal treatment of innocent people for political ends in the strongest possible terms.
“The cruelty must stop now. We know that people are being harmed; as doctors, we stand here together to say that what is happening in Australia is wrong and that it will go down in history as a national shame.
“The desire to do the right thing for our fellow humans is why most doctors chose their profession in the first place, and we know that what is happening to asylum seekers and refugees is wrong so we’re making this stand.”
Dr Madelaine Hanson
