TY - JOUR
T1 - Health professionals confront the intentional harms of indefinite immigration detention : an Australian overview, evaluation of alternative responses and proposed strategy
AU - Dudley, Michael
AU - Young, Peter
AU - Newman, Louise
AU - Gale, Fran
AU - Stoddart, Rohanna
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the following: how indefinite detention for deterrence (exemplified by Australia) injures asylum-seekers; how international legal authorities confirm Australia’s cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; how detention compromises health-care ethics and hurts health professionals; to weigh arguments for and against boycotting immigration detention; and to discover how health professionals might address these harms, achieving significant change. Design/methodology/approach: Secondary data analyses and ethical argumentation were employed. Findings: Australian Governments fully understand and accept policy-based injuries. They purposefully dispense cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and intend suffering that causes measurable harms for arriving asylum-seekers exercising their right under Australian law. Health professionals are ethically conflicted, not wanting to abandon patients yet constrained. Indefinite detention prevents them from alleviating sufferings and invites collusion, potentially strengthening harms; thwarts scientific inquiry and evidence-based interventions; and endangers their health whether they resist, leave or remain. Governments have primary responsibility for detained asylum-seekers’ health care. Health professional organisations should negotiate the minimum requirements for their members’ participation to ensure independence, and prevent conflicts of interest and inadvertent collaboration with and enabling systemic harms. Originality/value: Australia’s aggressive approach may become normalised, without its illegality being determined. Health professional colleges uniting over conditions of participation would foreground ethics and pressure governments internationally over this contagious and inexcusable policy.
AB - Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the following: how indefinite detention for deterrence (exemplified by Australia) injures asylum-seekers; how international legal authorities confirm Australia’s cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; how detention compromises health-care ethics and hurts health professionals; to weigh arguments for and against boycotting immigration detention; and to discover how health professionals might address these harms, achieving significant change. Design/methodology/approach: Secondary data analyses and ethical argumentation were employed. Findings: Australian Governments fully understand and accept policy-based injuries. They purposefully dispense cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and intend suffering that causes measurable harms for arriving asylum-seekers exercising their right under Australian law. Health professionals are ethically conflicted, not wanting to abandon patients yet constrained. Indefinite detention prevents them from alleviating sufferings and invites collusion, potentially strengthening harms; thwarts scientific inquiry and evidence-based interventions; and endangers their health whether they resist, leave or remain. Governments have primary responsibility for detained asylum-seekers’ health care. Health professional organisations should negotiate the minimum requirements for their members’ participation to ensure independence, and prevent conflicts of interest and inadvertent collaboration with and enabling systemic harms. Originality/value: Australia’s aggressive approach may become normalised, without its illegality being determined. Health professional colleges uniting over conditions of participation would foreground ethics and pressure governments internationally over this contagious and inexcusable policy.
KW - Australia
KW - detention of persons
KW - health aspects
KW - mental health
KW - political refugees
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:58475
U2 - 10.1108/IJMHSC-08-2020-0083
DO - 10.1108/IJMHSC-08-2020-0083
M3 - Article
SN - 1747-9894
VL - 17
SP - 35
EP - 51
JO - International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care
JF - International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care
IS - 1
ER -