Medical experts are “extremely concerned” for the physical and mental health of immigrants in hotel detention with calls again coming for their use to be stopped.
The Australian Human Rights Commission noted “severe negative impacts” on those held in hotels and found they got worse the longer someone was kept there, in a report released on Wednesday.
Many detainees had trouble accessing medical care and the hotels often lacked private spaces for people to meet with acquaintances including lawyers, with little access to programs and activities.
Professor Suresh Sundram, who inspected the hotels on the commission’s behalf, found hotels were not a fit environment to keep people on an ongoing basis.
“Hotel detention takes a serious toll on people’s physical and mental health ... the impacts are particularly concerning for those who have pre-existing conditions or who have experienced trauma,” he said.
“Many people with chronic conditions have not received the medical care they need, which is extremely concerning.”
Hotel detention entrenches social isolation, loneliness and a lack of privacy and provides insufficient fresh air along with substandard food, the report found.
It also raised concerns about using physical restraints, including handcuffs, when people were taken outside the facilities.
Commissioner Lorraine Finlay said hotels should only be used in exceptional circumstances for the shortest possible time, noting the average period of detention in hotels was 69 days and the longest continuous period was 634.
“This has consistently been the view of the commission and other oversight bodies, but the use of hotels has become regularised within Australia’s immigration detention system, resulting in ongoing human rights impacts,” she said.
“I hope the (Home Affairs) department will accept our offer to work collaboratively in implementing the recommendations, because action is needed to address these ongoing concerns.”
Greens senator Nick McKim said the report should end the use of hotel detention entirely.
“This is another bipartisan immigration policy that is arbitrary, cruel and has led to disastrous results for people, many of whom had already suffered awfully at the hands of the Labor and Liberal parties,” he said.
“Spending nearly half a million dollars a year to lock someone up in a hotel is obscene, but the policy would be just as bad if the hotels were free.”
