![\"AJA_5038banner_2500-774x434\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2015\/10\/AJA_5038banner_2500-774x434.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAbout 1000 doctors, nurses and clinical support staff across the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital have gathered to express their concern about children in immigration detention.<\/p>\n
In an opinion piece published in the Sunday Herald Sun, a group of our doctors wrote:<\/p>\n
“We are concerned about the impact of detention on children. We are concerned about the children who remain in detention today. Detention causes harm and it must end. We call for moral leadership on this issue to find a solution, quickly – to use alternatives to detention and to stop the harm.”<\/p>\n
Their stand has generated a huge reaction across Australia and has been supported by the Victorian Health Minister, the Hon. Jill Hennessy MP and the Australian Medical Association.<\/p>\n
The doctors, nurses and clinical support staff would like to thank everyone for their support.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To learn more about their position, read the full opinion piece below.<\/p>\n
We provide care for all children \u2014 including children in immigration detention.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s our job to make sure children are well, and our role and responsibility is the health and safety of children, working with others in the community, and each child\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
Our experience is that detention harms children and families.<\/p>\n
Many of the children in detention we see at the RCH have been there for a long time \u2014 18 months to two years, sometimes longer.<\/p>\n
For some children, this is more than half their lifetimes. For babies born in detention \u2014 it\u2019s their whole life.<\/p>\n
Detention centres have guards, fences, and checkpoints. Guards take children to school. Guards bring these children to the RCH, and stay at the door of their room or clinic for as long as the child is at the hospital.<\/p>\n
In detention, families are not able to function. Everyday activities, that we take for granted in the community, are not possible. Parents are not able to cook for their children. They cannot take them to school, or have space to be alone as a family.<\/p>\n
Over time, we see parents and children fall apart under this strain.<\/p>\n
They develop severe mental health problems and lose hope for the future.<\/p>\n
We see parents become overwhelmed and lose their confidence. Some parents can\u2019t care for their children because of their own mental health problems.<\/p>\n
Children have nightmares, bed-wetting, and behaviour problems. They develop depression and anxiety symptoms, and their development is affected. These issues are so common they\u2019ve become normal in detention. It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to treat these children while they are still detained.<\/p>\n
Detention centres are not safe for children. Children are exposed to the distress, violence and mental health problems of adults, and parents cannot protect their children from these circumstances.<\/p>\n
We are concerned about the impact of detention on children. We are concerned about the children who remain in detention today.<\/p>\n
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian people have shown compassion and leadership in response to Syrian refugees.<\/p>\n
The Victorian Government has shown a long\u00adstanding commitment to refugee health. We can be proud of these responses, however we cannot lose sight of the children who remain in indefinite detention.<\/p>\n
While many children were released earlier this year, there are still close to 100 children in detention in Australia, with a similar number on Nauru. There have been no public statistics about children in detention since May.<\/p>\n
We are responsible for providing the best possible care to the child in front of us.<\/p>\n
We recognise the fact that while they may be labelled an asylum seeker, they are a child with a family that loves and worries about them.<\/p>\n
We see an engineer and teacher with a four-year-old; the nine-year-old who wants to play football; the single dad who is finding parenting tough.<\/p>\n
When we use these terms to describe our patients, we acknowledge the people caught within the policies.<\/p>\n
When we use a different language to talk about these families \u2014 calling them \u201cboat arrivals\u201d or \u201cillegal maritime arrivals\u201d \u2014 we start to accept their situation in detention \u2014 one that we would not accept for other children, or for our own children.<\/p>\n
We believe there are many, many Australians who share our concern.<\/p>\n
As health staff at a leading children\u2019s hospital, our duty is to support child health.<\/p>\n
We cannot accept or condone harm to children. Detention causes harm and it must end.<\/p>\n
We call for moral leadership on this issue to find a solution, quickly \u2014 to use alternatives to detention and to stop the harm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About 1000 doctors, nurses and clinical support staff across the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital have gathered to express their concern about children in immigration detention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5148,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5143\/revisions\/5148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}