Doctors at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne will refuse to discharge children back into detention, saying the conditions could compromise their health.
The Age reports that more than 400 of the hospital’s doctors have declared conditions in the detention centres unsafe for children.
Victoria’s Health Minister Jill Hennessy backs the action, saying: “I’m extremely proud to be the health minister in a state where its doctors and nurses are putting the interest of children first.
“If the staff of the Royal Children’s Hospital come to the clinical view that it is not in the interests of those children to go back into detention, then we will support them,” she said.
“I can only imagine what it’s like to be a clinician, to treat a child, then have to reflect upon the health consequences of putting that child back into detention.”
