Mental health impact of detention on asylum seekers
According to a report in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, studies are urgently required to examine the mental health consequences of detention on asylum seekers, and, in particular, the effect of detention on their subsequent acculturation and adaptation in the community.
The report - by Mr Zachary Steel and Professor Derrick Silove at the School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney - is part of a feature on Asylum seekers and healthcare in this issue of the Journal. In a another report, a medical practitioner, Dr Aamer Sultan, held in detention at Villawood Detention Centre, Sydney, since May 1999 (see details in this issue of the Medical Journal of Australia), and a Clinical Psychologist who has worked at Villawood, Mr Kevin O'Sullivan, provide an account of the difficulties and mental reactions experienced by detained asylum seekers in Australia. The report by Dr Sultan and Mr O'Sullivan is a focus for the key issues raised by Mr Steel and Professor Silove.
Mr Steel and Professor Silove identify the possible mental health impact on asylum seekers of Australia's policy of mandatory detention as an issue of special relevance to health professionals and the public, quoting independent commissions of inquiry that have found varying degrees of mental distress to be common in detained asylum seekers.
"Australia is the only Western country that enforces a policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers arriving without entry documents, despite receiving only a small number of asylum applications (12,700 in 1999 - 2000) compared with most Western countries.
"Research studies in Australia and elsewhere suggest that detained asylum seekers may have suffered greater levels of past trauma than other refugees, and this may contribute to their mental health problems, with their detention providing a retraumatising environment," Mr Steel said.
Dr Sultan and Mr O'Sullivan describe the cumulative effects of prolonged detention on the mental state of asylum seekers, outlining successive stages of depression associated the with the environmental conditions of detention and the desperation detainees experience when their applications are unsuccessful. In the worst cases, frankly psychotic symptoms develop. He also describes the effect of detention on the children of asylum seekers, and the secondary effect on children of the mental distress of their parents.
Mr Steel and Professor Silove call for urgent research to examine more definitively the possible mental health consequences of detention, and express concern over the possibility that detention is leaving long-term psychological scars that may impede the adaptation and acculturation of detainees released into the community.
The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.
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