Abstract
In February 2016 a twelve-month-old asylum seeker, who came to be know as Baby Asha, was transferred from Nauru and hospitalized in Brisbane. This case came to public attention after Doctors refused to discharge Asha as she would have been returned to detention on Nauru. What in other circumstances would have been considered routine clinical care, quickly turned into an act of civil disobedience. This paper will discuss the ethical aspects of this case, along with its implications for clinicians and the broader healthcare community.
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Notes
Australia re-introduced offshore processing of asylum seekers in 2012 and re-opened centres on both Manus Island (Papua New Guinea) and Nauru.
While APODs and community placements offer a number of superficial improvements and thus remain preferable to other forms of detention, they also remain problematic. In the longer term APODs do little to mediate the harms of detention (AHRC 2014; Essex and Govintharajah 2017). Community placements raise similar concerns (Clement 2012; Essex 2013).
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Essex, R., Isaacs, D. The Ethics of Discharging Asylum Seekers to Harm: A Case From Australia. Bioethical Inquiry 15, 39–44 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-017-9833-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-017-9833-6