By David Kavanagh | posted on December 12, 2019
A DENMARK activist who helped sick asylum seekers fill out the forms required for their medical evacuation to Australia has warned the recent repeal of the Medevac law could cause further deaths offshore.
Refugee advocate Dawn Barrington said the Federal Government’s decision to scrap the legislation, which facilitated inter-country transfers on the recommendation of Australian doctors, would severely impact those still requiring treatment.
“There’s a chance there’s going to be death,” she told the Weekender.
“Most of the guys that need medical attention, it’s because of their mental health. They’ve lost all hope, they’ve lost their will to live and this will be another blow.
“There might be someone who tries to kill himself because he’s had enough. There were a lot of suicide attempts in that period of time [following the Government’s re-election].”
Ms Barrington has been in regular contact with asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since the Medevac Bill was first passed in February.
Since then, she has worked with the Medical Evacuation Response Group (MERG), a partnership of specialist refugee support organisations from across the country, to assist asylum seekers through the Medevac application process.
Their efforts have seen more than 150 asylum seekers temporarily transferred to Australia from PNG and Nauru since March.
“MERG created a webpage where all asylum seekers that were sick could register themselves to be assessed under Medevac,” Ms Barrington explained.
“We helped them fill out their forms and updates would be sent to specialists who phoned them and did video calls like they would in a regional area.
“Once two or more doctors had done their report, it would go to [Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton] for approval.
“It’s horrible because … there are still guys left over there waiting and some of them even got their Medevac approved and are still stuck there.
“They’ve messaged me and said ‘what’s going to happen now? What’s going to happen to us? We don’t know’.”
Asylum Seekers Action Group Albany’s Irene Montefiore, who has been coordinating Saturday demonstrations outside Albany Town Hall for more than two years, shared Ms Barrington’s concerns.
She said while asylum seekers would still be able to apply for medical transfers via Australia’s court system, the process would be harder and take longer.
According to the Asylum Seeker Research Centre, the average wait time for transfers prior to Medevac was two years.
“We’ll keep doing what we’re doing,” Ms Montefiore said.
“I get a definite sense of people thinking this Government has gone too far, this cannot be allowed to continue.”
Medevac was officially repealed on December 4 when independent Senator Jacqui Lambie cast the deciding vote in favour of the change.
In a press conference following the vote, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said medical evacuations were “never under threat”.
“What the Labor Party sought to do a year ago was to provide a weakening of our border regime for people to get around the rules and find their way to Australia,” he said.
“We’ve always understood that that type of loophole doesn’t strengthen our borders.
“We stood firm and went to an election and said support the Coalition and we will repeal those laws … today, we fulfilled that promise to the Australian people.”
Federal Member for O’Connor Rick Wilson was contacted for this story but did not respond before deadline.
He has previously said he stands by the Government’s “strong border protection policies”.
