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According to the Australian Border Force (ABF), one third of refugees and asylum seekers held in Melbourne immigration detention hotels have tested positive for COVID-19, prompting more people to call on the government to provide immigrants with immediate medical services and Release them into the community.
News comes Melbourne lifts the sixth blockade, Which came into effect after the Delta variant of the coronavirus caused the repetition of strict COVID restrictions earlier this year.
As the virus continues to spread in detention facilities, the pressure on detainees is increasing. Now a few people have symptoms, one is hospitalized, and the remaining 45 people are isolated or confined in their own rooms.
Aziz, a refugee detained in the hotel, said he lost consciousness in the shower on Sunday after contracting the virus.
He has now received a positive test result for COVID-19 and has been isolated in the hotel due to severe chest pain, breathing difficulties, and body pain.
“The nurse comes to me every 24 hours to bring Panadol and take my temperature. I have never seen a doctor at all,” he told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
Advocates of detained immigrants and human rights and immigration activists say that efforts to contain the virus in the hotel are too late.
Ian Rintoul, a political activist and spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition (RAC), had contact with immigrants in the hotel. He said that the first detainees infected with COVID-19 were reported on October 15. Tested and quarantined every day. But they had developed symptoms in the days before that, he said.
Rintoul added that when they were quarantined, other detainees had already developed symptoms of infection.
“So you have this ridiculous situation, they know there are…symptomatic people. Therefore, they are very worried about isolating them and testing them, they know they have been mixing with 42 other people, but they are not These 42 people did not take any measures,” he said.
There are 46 refugees and asylum seekers in the facility.
‘No isolation’
Salah, another refugee who was detained with his son, said there was no isolation in the hotel.
“All refugees, [at the] At the same time they are all together, eating together, training together…they and [staff], Talk to everyone,” he said.
In the end, on Sunday, ABF announced three positive results and began large-scale testing after the disease spread.
ABF said in a statement on Friday: “The decisions surrounding the containment of COVID-19, including restrictions on movement to reduce transmission, are guided by the health advice and instructions of the state government. Employees and contractors entering APOD [Alternative Place of Detention such as hotels] Observe strict requirements regarding physical distance and the use of personal protective equipment. “
It also mentioned that “ABF and its service providers are working closely with Victorian health authorities to manage contact tracing, isolation, testing and cleaning.”
However, Rintoul stated that there is no “appropriate practice” throughout the hotel’s control of COVID. Although all the detainees were tested on Sunday, their results did not come back at the same time.
Jana Favero of the Asylum Seeker Resource Center (ASRC) said, “Some people who were tested on Sunday have not got the test results after nearly a week.”
“In a closed environment, why don’t people who have symptoms a week ago take more urgent action?” she asked.
No proper physical distance
Rintoul pointed out that those who were quarantined at the hotel did not effectively distance themselves from other detainees.
COVID-19 patients have been isolated on different floors of the hotel,”[but] The whole place is air-conditioned and you cannot open the windows. It is very likely…we will catch COVID throughout the hotel,” he said.
In a report, the Australian Human Rights Commission stated that hotels “are not suitable places for closed immigration detention because they lack special facilities for exercise, entertainment and activities, and they have limited outdoor space.”
As of June this year, at the height of the pandemic, there were at least 80 detainees staying in such dwellings across Australia.
Since March 2020, Australia’s second largest city has so far experienced 262 days or nearly 9 months of restrictions during six separate lockdowns [File: Sandra Sanders/Reuters]ABF once again defended the system and said, “It has recommended that all detainees in the facility be isolated in their accommodation rooms to reduce the risk of transmission.”
“Each detainee lives in his own room with bathroom facilities. All detainees in this facility are being tested for COVID-19.”
Both detainees and advocates said that hotel staff and guards may have brought the COVID into the facility.
Rintoul said, “There is still no indication that any contact tracing or testing has been conducted between the guards to find the source of the infection.”
“It is opaque,” he said. “The government does seem to believe that normal agreements, agreements that are strictly enforced in the wider Australian community, do not apply to detention.”
Detention agreement
Rintoul stated that the agreement between the guard and the detainee was different.
For example, if a detainee is taken out of a hotel to receive a medical appointment, he will be quarantined when he returns, but there is “no indication” that the guards will also be quarantined, he said.
At the same time, according to detainees in the hotel, those in quarantine received almost no medical care.
Salah, an immigrant who tested negative for COVID with his son, told Al Jazeera that he checked his son’s symptoms four to six times a day. “And he checked me… what should I do?”
On Friday, the ABF stated that those with symptoms of COVID-19 are “closely monitored by detained health service providers, tested, quarantined and provided with appropriate medical care”.
But according to Rintoul, from 8 am to 4 pm, only one nurse was stationed at the center. The nurse is employed by the International Health and Medical Service (IHMS), which has signed a contract with the government to provide health care services to detainees.
He said that the services provided by the IHMS are simply not enough to deal with the COVID outbreak, adding that some detainees also have serious underlying health conditions.
Favero said all the refugees in the hotel were taken from offshore detention centers to Australia for treatment, “so they are at high risk. They are a vulnerable group.”
For example, Azizi also suffers from migraines and high blood pressure, as well as breathing difficulties.
He said that the food provided to the detainees at the hotel did not help.
“it’s here [there is no] Delicious food and delicious fruits,” he said, adding that so far, his requirements for oranges and lemons have been ignored.
“Because of a lack of vitamins, you will also suffer from vitamin deficiencies, and your body will be weaker,” said Jan Alcon, an advocate of Aziz freedom.
“The food photos I’ve seen…you won’t eat it. If you give it to people in Australian restaurants, they won’t eat it,” she added.
We have a group of legal observers today @racvictoria #be opposed to Outside the Carlton Park Hotel, how is the monitoring @Victoria Police New police @VictorianCHO direction. #VicPolWatch pic.twitter.com/NB0a9aj4Sz
-Melb Activist Legal (@ActivistLegal) October 23, 2021
Release detainees
At the same time, ABF stated that since early August 2021, detainees can be vaccinated, “detainees continue to receive information about vaccines in multiple languages in order to make informed choices.”
It said that approximately 61% of people received the vaccine once and 54% received the full vaccine. But data released by the government on Monday showed that only 52% of people received a single dose of the vaccine, and only 17% were fully vaccinated.
“There is a certain degree of suspicion about IHMS… [detainees] Think of the IHMS simply as…a branch of the border force [ABF], There is absolutely no trust in what they were injected or anything else,” Rintoul said.
“Many people say [they’re] It’s nice to be vaccinated… but they will get the vaccine outside the detention center, not inside. “
Favero said that this will be the ultimate solution-to release refugees and asylum seekers detained across Australia from detention facilities to the community, where they will be safer from disease.
“In the past 10 months, we have seen nearly 180 refugees released from detention centers, or APODs like hotel detention,” she said.
“So the government actually has a solution before them. They should do this for everyone, and they should do it early. It’s definitely on them.”
The refugees at the hotel called for the same action.
“I want freedom, for me and my son, and for everyone here,” Salah said. “all [the] People are very tired.So tired…they are nine years [are] Wait…freedom. “
“Please… my son, he is 14 years old and 23 years old now. This is not fair.”
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