The report is critical of Australia's asylum seeker and refugee policies, saying medical facilities in Papua New Guinea and Nauru are not dealing properly with the complex health needs of those in offshore detention.
Media freedom, Indigenous rights and aged care in Australia are some of the issues raised in an annual report released by Human Rights Watch.
Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers was under review as part of the Human Rights report.Professor of Mental Health at the University of South Australia Nicholas Procter said prolonged uncertainty is continuing to impact those who have yet to be resettled. In February 2019, parliament passed a law facilitating transfers of detainees requiring medical treatment from offshore locations to Australia, but theProfessor Procter said the Medevac laws had provided extra safeguards for those in offshore detention.
"What we know is many aged care facilities are using psychotropic drugs, not necessarily to control symptoms but to control behaviour," he said. "There has also been a general approach from the government to treat pretty ordinary government procedures as secret. And obfuscation and avoidance by various governments from media scrutiny," he said.
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