Sarah Stephen
Tensions began to boil over inside the Baxter immigration detention centre at the end of November, with a series of attempted suicides and hospitalisations.
Previously, nurses saw patients in the nurses station inside the compound. However new rules in place since November 21 mean that medication is now available only once a day and detainees must line up and wait to get on a bus, two at a time, travel 100 metres outside the compound, then line up again to wait up to two hours for medication. Many have refused to go and are suffering withdrawal.
Many also refuse to leave the compound for appointments or visits, fearing that they will be tricked and taken for deportation.
Canberra refugee activist Tanya McConvell said on November 23: "Many, most, if not all the people are now dependent on (addicted to) the prescribed medicines. To cut off the supply, to force people to spend a long time trying to get their medicine, to make them depend on guards and transport to get it causes even more stress."
There are also reports of deteriorating food quality, to the point where detainees, especially those with dietary requirements, have not been able to eat their meals, and their health is suffering.
It appears that cost-saving measures are driving the changes. "More shampoo is needed because it is so diluted and blades in the shavers end up damaging their faces", McConvell said. "Meanwhile there is increased verbal abuse, laughing, ridiculing, spreading of confusion by the guards.
"Asylum seekers feel they are being deliberately provoked. There used to be a delegates committee which met with [the immigration department] but delegates don't go any more because no-one has listened to them or taken any notice of the issues which they have brought to the committee for a very long time."
Recently, there have been at least three attempts at suicide, one by hanging and two by electrocution. One man has badly cut his face, particularly around the eyes.
McConvell reported an escalation in provocation by Global Solutions Management (GSL), which runs the Baxter detention centre, on November 24: "GSL has announced that some people are on expensive medication and the company is not going to pay any more.
"One person has received a letter demanding $600 for the dentist. He has now been asked for money in advance before anything else happens! He has no money. People have complicated problems after a long time in detention and are on heavy medication. Threatening to withdraw it will send more and more people over the edge."
From Green Left Weekly, December 1, 2004.
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