An asylum seeker at Darwin’s immigration detention centre has had a colonoscopy request ignored despite suffering rectal bleeding, the man’s partner has told the ABC.
Mohammed Nemati had the procedure booked when he was in detention at Victoria’s Maribyrnong centre in July, but he was transferred to Wickham Point Detention Centre one day before the appointment.
Since then he has been told to wait indefinitely, Mr Nemati’s partner, Australian resident Maree Johnson, told the ABC.
She said nurses were not taking his case seriously and she feared for his health and her own.
“Their medical health care and the care that they are giving to these people are Panadol and Nurofen,” Ms Johnson said.
“That’s it, that’s the medical care.
“I actually called and was put through to a nurse who was rather rude. She told me, ‘Well he’s just going to have to wait’.
“I explained that he’s been so sick and she said again ‘he’s just going to have to wait’.
“I’m sure any doctor would say that it is crucial to have an investigation and see what’s happening. In Mohammed’s case he’s just been left.”
Mr Nemati, who is from Iran, met Ms Johnson at a nightclub more than two years ago.
They planned to marry and had begun building a house together in country Victoria when Mr Nemati was placed in immigration detention on June 30. Three weeks later he was transferred to Darwin.
“All we wanted was a peaceful and simple life in the country,” she said.
“I just want Mohammed to come home. I need him to come home.”
Ms Johnson said she was concerned her partner’s rectal bleeding was due to a history of hereditary bowel cancer.
“Bowel cancer runs in his family,” she said. “His uncle and his cousin both recently had to have chemotherapy and bowel surgery.”
Letters requesting ministerial intervention not answered
Ms Johnson suffers several mental disorders including bipolar affective disorder, social phobia and agoraphobia.
Since the detention of Mr Nemati, who was both her partner and carer, Ms Johnson said her health had begun to deteriorate rapidly.
“I’ve lost probably about eight kilos now,” she said.
“I don’t go out much. I just go to my mum’s, a little bit of shopping, that’s it … I just stay home and I’m not sleeping.
“These people that are stuck in there, they’re suffering, they really are … I’m suffering here and this is my home.”
Ms Johnson’s psychiatrist has sent a number of letters to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection supporting Ms Johnson’s application for ministerial intervention.
Ms Johnson said she was disappointed the letters had gone unanswered.
“There has been no acknowledgement whatsoever. His letters have just been ignored and totally disregarded,” she said.
A spokeswoman for Darwin’s Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) said that while she could not comment on individual cases, it was not uncommon for detainees to complain that their health was being ignored.
“It would happen on an almost weekly basis, if not more than once per week we would be told about people who are really concerned about their health care and whether their health care is being attended to,” Natasha Blucher said.
She said it was not uncommon for people in detention to be moved before receiving long-awaited treatment.
“It is something that we are regularly told by asylum seekers … so it seems to us that often operational concerns will come above people’s health care in some cases,” the spokeswoman said.
The Immigration Department declined to comment on the case but issued a statement about the level of health care available to detainees.
“All detainees have access to health care as needed while in detention. The standard of that health care is comparable to care available to the Australian community,” a spokesman said in a statement.