(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Just last month, a report released by the federal government provided some of the details on the fatal riot at the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea in February.
One man died and at least 69 people were treated for injuries, some of them serious.
Now, a letter out of the camp claims at least one of those seriously injured is not getting adequate medical help in the aftermath.
Ron Sutton has the story.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
An asylum seeker at the Manus Island detention centre claims a fellow detainee injured in February's riots there faints several times a day, bleeds from the nose and is being treated with Panadol.
The claim is made in a letter to an asylum-seekers advocate who runs a writing program for detainees and has regular communication with both the writer, and with many other detainees.
The writer of the letter, an Iranian who cannot be named, wrote:
"There is an Iranian asylum seeker in Manus, Foxtrot Camp --(name supplied)-- who they hit in his head and made a seven-centimetre gap on his head. Now, he falls to the ground and faints. The doctors just give him Panadol headache pills. He needs to be checked by MRI medical machine, but they do not send him to hospital. Today, he fainted for the fourth time at 5pm. He was bleeding from his nose and faint when they took him to the medical (centre). Every day, it happens to him."
A spokesman for the Immigration Minister maintains contracted health-care provider, International Health and Medical Services, is providing comprehensive service for all Manus transferees.
Asked by SBS for the Minister's response to the claim about the injured man's health, the spokesman for Scott Morrison replied in a statement:
"Where people require medical treatment, they receive it. The Minister is advised that transferees injured during the incident in mid-February that require ongoing treatment, as assessed by IHMS, are receiving that treatment for their injuries. Should any additional health needs be identified over time, they will receive treatment accordingly."
But Victorian writer and poet Janet Galbraith, who received the letter, says it comes from a detainee she has corresponded with extensively and trusts - as she puts it - "absolutely".
Ms Galbraith is founder of the group Writing Through Fences, which encourages asylum seekers in detention centres to express their feelings through creative writing.
She says, in the process of running that program, she has found herself in regular correspondence with many asylum seekers offering the specifics of conditions within the camps.
She describes the writer of this letter as what she calls one of the men working hard to keep other detainees on Manus Island sane.
"I speak to this man ... well, he rings me once a week, and we speak by email once a week when he's able to access the Internet. And I've known him for many months now. I run an online writing group which is comprised of people from all of the detention centres run by Australia. He's one of those people."
Ms Galbraith says various letter-writers keep her informed on how many detainees have tried to kill themselves and who they are, detainees who they think are going insane and those who are injured.
But she says this letter points to a problem she feels is getting no attention: that the injured just continue to get worse.
"I don't think that anyone realises that these people are becoming worse and worse. Like that guy ... that was bad, and he was treated -- even if he wasn't treated well -- on the night, but he's now becoming more and more ill, and he's collapsing four or five times a day, he's bleeding from his nose, he's in excruciating pain, and he's going mad. And I think what we don't hear is that it's actually getting worse. There has been nothing done, and these guys are getting sicker and sicker and sicker."
The detainee writes of others still suffering from serious injuries incurred in the riot.
He writes of one with a bullet still in his body from what he calls "that terrible night," another dealing with the loss of an eye and another whose throat was cut.
All of those injuries were included in the official report on the February violence, written by the former head of the federal Attorney General's Department.
The detainee writes:
"Many people of Australia care about crabs, fishes and dogs but they do not care about us. We are human, exactly like them. We have wisdom and feelings, too."
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