Government News Index
Ruddock defends mum's care
AAP
28mar02
IMMIGRATION Minister Philip Ruddock has defended a decision not to have a detained new mother suffering severe post-natal depression taken into hospital.
Mr Ruddock said it was perfectly logical the woman should have remained in detention with her family rather than be released to receive treatment.
The woman, who gave birth late last year, was reportedly taken from Sydney's Villawood detention centre to hospital last night suffering depression.
Psychiatrist Louise Newman from the Royal Australasian College of Psychiatry said she had been monitoring the woman for some time and had judged her to be suffering significant depression.
She said her condition had steadily worsened since she was first diagnosed, culminating in her being taken to hospital last night.
"This raises questions in our minds about the adequacy of clinical supervision and the ability of the detention centre to actually care for people with significant mental health problems and subsequent physical illnesses that they can have as complications of that," Dr Newman told ABC radio.
ABC Radio said the NSW Department of Community Services had assessed the woman seven weeks ago and recommended the entire family be released from detention.
But Mr Ruddock said if the immigration department had advice someone should not be removed from their family, it would not release the entire family for the sake of the individual.
"It's perfectly logical," he said on ABC radio.
"If the advice is that the individual should not be removed in separation from the family for their care, then we are certainly not going to have outside authorities who will not make that assessment in relation to the individual.
"Mandatory detention, which is the law, cannot be unwound because you have an individual whose condition is not so serious that it is the answer they should be separated from the family unit in order to receive that treatment."
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