The health crisis in offshore detention
Eleven years ago, the Labor Rudd Government condemned people seeking safety to a life of danger and uncertainty in Papua New Guinea. From the thousands who were stranded there, 48 people still remain.
Alarmingly, the once empty Nauru detention centre is also starting to fill up again, with roughly 100 people transferred there in recent months.
Will you add your name to the call urging Prime Minister Albanese and Minister Burke to evacuate every single person to safety?
Cut off from support and with restricted access to healthcare, refugees and people seeking asylum are facing serious mental and physical health issues. In PNG, people are struggling to buy daily essentials like bread and milk to feed their families. A father described how his wife suffered a miscarriage, but was refused hospital treatment despite being in excruciating pain.1
Without appropriate medical treatment, the physical and mental health of people in PNG and Nauru will continue to deteriorate. For those who have waited in PNG for 11 years, their poor health puts their resettlement prospects at risk. They cannot wait any longer.
Call on the Albanese Government to urgently evacuate everyone to safety and close this shameful chapter for good.
Read the ASRC’s report: 'Cruelty by design: the health crisis in offshore detention'
[1] ‘The wait is too long’: the refugees left in PNG after a decade in Australia’s offshore detention, The Guardian, 17 March 2024.