There is one group that will be pouring over the details of the Guardian’s revelations into the shortcomings of the healthcare provided to asylum seekers – and that is plaintiff lawyers.
Guardian Australia’s analysis of the documented internal workings of International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), and its relationship with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, is a fertile source of material for any class action lawyer seeking to mount a negligence case against the commonwealth and IHMS – the contracted provider of health and medical services to asylum seekers held in Australian operated detention facilities, including those offshore.
Already there is a class action underway alleging a breach of the commonwealth’s duty of care for failing to provide adequate education for children detained on Christmas Island. Maurice Blackburn is handling that case in the Victorian supreme court.
Plaintiff law firm Slater & Gordon is also running a class action alleging negligent treatment of asylum seekers on Manus Island by the commonwealth, Transfield Services and the former contractor G4S.
The duty of care owed by the commonwealth to asylum seekers and refugees is non-derogable – it cannot be suspended or transferred. There is still a way to go with these cases before the emergence of details that might embarrass the government and the Australian people in whose name these policies are implemented.
The lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Manus case have been assisted by revelations about conditions there documented by Amnesty International, the UNHCR, the commonwealth ombudsman and Guardian Australia.
Now we have this telling tranche of internal IHMS documents detailing the company’s struggle to cope with the demands of its contract, the clash of clinical and commercial objectives, the pressure it is under to fudge results, the problems of gaining the required clearance for its personnel to treat children, failure to act on issues like bullying, the inability to handle complaints within an adequate timeframe, high non-compliance rates for diagnostic screening and commencement of vaccination programs, failure to meet thresholds for the completion of medical records, including incorrect information in reports to the department, concocting excuses, etc, etc, etc.
The publication of this information by Guardian Australia is another fragment of detail about the plight of the people we are so miserably failing in our duty to protect.
As we have seen, the Border Force Act provides jail terms for doctors, other health workers and indeed a whole range of “entrusted persons” working at “processing centres” who disclose or even make a record of “protected information”.
Disclosure of IHMS’s internal documents are the very thing the legislation seeks to stymie, although this information is not beyond the clutches of a courtroom. The electorate is not in a strong position to insist on a change of policy in the way our “sovereign borders” are maintained and asylum seekers treated, because voters have largely been cocooned in officially ordained blissful ignorance.
It is only by leaks and litigation that the neglect and cruelties ever see the light of day and, more often than not, when court proceedings turn up material damaging or embarrassing to the government of the day, there is a rush to settle.
This is why revelations such as the IHMS documents are so critical. While they may not force the government to change course, at least the Australian electorate cannot indefinitely put its head in the sand and pretend it has absolutely no idea what is going on.
The vilification of Prof Gillian Triggs and her report on children in immigration detention was one of the nastier campaigns of the Abbott government and its claqueurs in the media.
Yet, here we find amid the piles of material in the possession of Guardian Australia that checks required before IHMS staff can work with children were not fully undertaken. The company believed it was “likely to fail” its compliance requirements for treating children.
External audits of the healthcare provider shows that at Christmas Island there was a high degree of failure to provide basic vaccinations to children.
IHMS itself recognised that there could be “significant consequences for the health and welfare” of Christmas Island detainees.
The process of providing healthcare to children was clouded with uncertainty. IHMS was not certain whether all staff have undergone background criminal record checks for those who attend to children, particularly at the Perth immigration reception and processing centre.
An internal company note, reported by the Guardian’s Bridie Jabour, Paul Farrell and Nick Evershed says: “Some sites are likely to fail at the moment, for working with children checks and basic life support checks.”
Yet Triggs is persecuted for having the temerity to delve into the fate of the “forgotten children”.
The government’s boast that is has released children from immigration centres should be tempered with the knowledge that 127 are still detained on the Australian mainland, 88 on Nauru and another 642 in community detention.
The nation’s exhaustion and disengagement about refugees and asylum seekers is not an enduring state of affairs. Ultimately, the worm will turn, there will be a point at which, collectively, Australians will look at this moment as a stain on our history.
The IHMS material is an incremental step in that direction. There are other steps in train. Currently lawyers, including Julian Burnside QC, are preparing a submission for the international criminal court detailing how Australia oversights the mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees.
It is unlikely that Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison or Peter Dutton will be charged with anything, but it is hoped and believed that the ICC will announce an investigation, which would sound another wake-up moment for the drowsy public.
Stopping boats is not a justification for drowning the life-force from people held indefinitely behind barbwire. Nor is it a justification for the bogus notions about sovereignty, the militarisation of immigration and customs functions, politicians dressing up as airforce pilots, bunting and flags and all the other manifestations of fear mongering and political insecurity.