topic Re: RCH refuse to return children in Community Spirit

RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 02:44:38 GMT

Well done, RCH drs for putting the children first and standing up to our politicians and their heart breaking stance on asylum seekers.

http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/royal-childrens-hospital-doctors-refuse-to-return-children-to-detention-20151010-gk63xm.html

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 03:20:19 GMT

Doctors at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne are refusing to send back asylum seeker children to detention centres amid a showdown with the Immigration Department.

News Corp is reporting the doctors are concerned about the welfare of their dozens of patients and say it would be unethical to discharge them to unsafe conditions that could compromise their health.

Defying new federal laws threatening two years' jail for health workers who speak out against immigration detention centre conditions, more than 400 of the hospital's doctors stood together on Friday demanding children be released from detention.

"We see a whole range of physical, mental, emotional and social disturbances that are really severe and we have no hope of improving these things when we have to discharge our patients back into detention," one paediatrician told News Corp.

The outlet reported that it understood the issue was sparked by a month-long standoff between doctors and authorities over the release of a child with a range of health issues this year.

Staff have also been outraged at immigration guards placed at the entrances of some patients' rooms for 24 hours a day.

Re: RCH refuse to return children

kilroy_is_here — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 05:16:02 GMT

So now we have doctors dictating government policy, why don't these over payed extortionists donate there time and go to the detention centres and treat all the inmates if they are that concerned

Re: RCH refuse to return children

the_great_she_elephant — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 05:33:08 GMT

@kilroy_is_here wrote:
So now we have doctors dictating government policy, why don't these over payed extortionists donate there time and go to the detention centres and treat all the inmates if they are that concerned

You're missing the point Kilroy. It's not a lack of doctors in detention centres that is the problem it's the detention centres themselves and the conditions there under which the children have to live and the doctors have to work.

Re: RCH refuse to return children

polksaladallie — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 06:21:14 GMT

I am wondering about the mystery surrounding the refugee who is pregnant after being raped and who is for some reason being prevented from being brought to Australia for an abortion. Why the secrecy?

Re: RCH refuse to return children

lionrose.7 — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 07:07:45 GMT

How can any one think about sending these little children back to a place that is a prison, we are not Nazi's.

Heart breaking.

Re: RCH refuse to return children

opmania — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 10:14:38 GMT

Its very unlikely that they

Will be gased

Burned and their fat turned

Into soap and sold back

To the inmates

I would expect a detention

Centre would be a

Holiday choice as opposed

To a war zone for a legitimate

Refugee.

If they were more

Co-operative and stopped

Going on hunger strikes

Sewing their lips together

And burning matresses

And anything else they can find or do

To create total chaos.

Perhaps they would enjoy their

Stay a little more than they do

This could as well cause many of

The problems the children

Supposedly have or geez maybe its

Because they have been

Traumatized by war

And how many of the medical

Staff at this hospital are islamic

I wonder.

Doesn't matter how they

Go about it , they always get their way.

Re: RCH refuse to return children

myoclon1cjerk — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:24:49 GMT

We can't let them stay here.If we do,lots more coloured people who talk funny will want to come too We have to keep Straya pure and white.Zat is an order!!

Re: RCH refuse to return children

myoclon1cjerk — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:48:14 GMT

Nothing like iambic pentameter

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:50:35 GMT

Or lack of. Robert Frost was a genius with that,

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:52:23 GMT

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/11/asylum-seeker-rallies-across-australia-draw-thousands-in-support-of-refugees?CMP=soc_567

Re: RCH refuse to return children

myoclon1cjerk — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:54:50 GMT

I'm a Samuel Beckett fan myself,only because I'm such a cheerful chap.Now I await an 'off topic' comment 🙂

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:56:44 GMT

@polksaladallie wrote:
I am wondering about the mystery surrounding the refugee who is pregnant after being raped and who is for some reason being prevented from being brought to Australia for an abortion. Why the secrecy?

Word is, as of 4 hours ago, that she is on a plane to Australia for a termination.

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 11:57:30 GMT

Re: RCH refuse to return children

debra9275 — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 12:04:06 GMT

A few lawyers have pledged free legal services to any doctors who are prosecuted over this. it's nice to see there are still some good people around

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 12:18:00 GMT

There are still plenty of good people out there, Deb. The protest against the dreadful treatment of asylum seekers continues to gather momentum, and, the compassion and support from Australians for those held in offshore detention centres is amazing.

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 12:35:33 GMT

Those who condone the ill treatment of children ought to be ashamed of themselves. The medical staff see first hand the amount of harm - both short and long term - that is being caused and to slander them is nothing short of arrogance. These are highly skilled professionals and not shallow armchair "experts". Are you denying their expertise or do you seriously believe that you know more than they do?

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 12:51:03 GMT

The doctors' actions also earned them the praise of thousands of people at a rally in support of refugees at Melbourne's State Library on Sunday, who erupted into cheers when the hospital was mentioned.

The Australian Medical Association said it had a "fundamental problem" that children were in detention and had been asking governments to look for "any alternative" to it for years.

"We acknowledge the evidence that children in detention face circumstances which are very harmful to their health, their growth and their development," vice president Stephen Parnis said.

He said that if children did need to be detained, then they should be released "in weeks" at the absolute most. Dr Parnis said the AMA was aware that a "number" of doctors who had provided care to children in detention had been quite distressed.

Children were presenting having self-harmed, with anxiety, severe depression and not growing in a healthy or normal way, he said.

Dr Parnis said doctors were constrained in the care that could be offered to these children.

"It flies in the face of our ethical obligation to provide good care." Sydney paediatrician David Isaacs, who runs the children's refugee clinic at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, also backed the Royal Children's Hospital staff.

Dr Isaacs visited Nauru in December 2014 and saw a six-year-old girl try to hang herself. He said his visit to the island left him deeply troubled, and he experienced nightmares on his return.

"These are very traumatic cases where children are severely suicidal and in a lot of trouble," Dr Isaacs said.

Re: RCH refuse to return children

the_great_she_elephant — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 12:59:27 GMT

It is my belief that the apparent callousness of some people towards the plight of the detainees - particularly the children - stems not from selfishness, apathy or lack of empathy,but simply from a complete lack imagination. they are unable to picture these people as living, breathing human beings, but see them only as a vague, disturbing manifestation of otherness - numbers and statistics with no with no physical existence in the real world. It is the same lack of public imagination that allowedfor so long the abuse of children in State and Church run homes.

Stephen Vincent Benet, described it compellingly when decribing the horrors of the Civil War POW Camp at Andersonville.

Some men wish evil and accomplish it
But most men, when they work in that machine,
Just let it happen somewhere in the wheels.
The fault is no decisive, villainous knife
But the dull saw that is the routine mind.

Why, if a man lay dying on their desk
They'd do their best to help him, friend or foe,
But this is merely a respectfully
Submitted paper, properly endorsed
To be sent on and on, and gather blood.

Stephen Vincent Benet,
"John Brown's Body"

Re: RCH refuse to return children

bluecat*dancing — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 13:02:19 GMT

All of the above, She-ele, but fortunately, they are in the minority. The government needs to step up and do the right thing. There should be no children in detention centres.