HREOC Website: National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention
Transcript of Hearing - ADELAIDE
Tuesday, 2 July 2002
Please note: This is an edited
transcript.
This witness later agreed
that her evidence could be made public.
Commissioners:
DR SEV OZDOWSKI, Human Rights Commissioner
MRS ROBIN SULLIVAN, Queensland Children's Commissioner
PROFESSOR TRANG THOMAS, Professor of Psychology, Melbourne Institute
of Technology
MS VANESSA LESNIE, Secretary to the Inquiry
DR OZDOWSKI: Yes, so now you are invited to give in camera
evidence here, thank you for coming. My name is Sev Ozdowski, and I'm the
Human Rights Commissioner, and to my left I've got Dr Trang Thomas, who
is Professor of Psychology in Melbourne and I've also got Mrs Sullivan,
who is the Children’s Commissioner in Queensland. They are my Assistant
Commissioners to the Inquiry. Also we've got staff from the Human Rights
Commission and we have got on my right, the Secretary to the Inquiry, and
on my left, Counsel assisting us with the Inquiry. Now, could I ask you
to make an oath or affirmation.
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, an oath.
DR MARIE JOSE O'NEILL, sworn
Ex-Woomera child psychologist
DR OZDOWSKI: Dr O'Neill, could you state your name, address,
qualifications and capacity in which you are appearing today for the record,
please?
DR O'NEILL:
Marie Jose O'Neill, and my office is [address deleted]. I have
a Bachelors and Masters in Psychology and Teaching Certificate and also
a PhD in Psychology.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Thank you. Could I ask, Dr O'Neill, why did you decide to appear
in-camera, rather than to give open evidence?
DR O'NEILL:
Because I worked in the Centre for quite a long time and I am concerned
that if detainees were present in an open meeting that I might say something
to embarrass somebody.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Okay, now, could you perhaps mention how long you were in Woomera for
the record and what you were doing there?
DR O'NEILL:
I was there firstly for a week, I think it was in March, to assess the
unaccompanied minors - to interview them all at that time - and then I
…
DR OZDOWSKI:
On behalf of whom?
DR O'NEILL:
For ACM. Then I was asked to go back and I went back on a six-month contract
at the beginning of May and after the six-month contract ended I was asked
to have - take another six-week contract, which I took until, I think
it was 21 December, and then I didn't apply for another contract.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Were you asked to apply for another contract?
DR O'NEILL:
We were all asked if we would like to apply and I was very tired and …
DR OZDOWSKI:
And no pressure was put on you to apply?
DR O'NEILL:
No, no.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Now, what did you do over there?
DR O'NEILL:
I was a psychologist there and the main duties were to be available
for detainees and staff for counselling.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Counselling. Were you wearing one of those ACM uniforms as a psychologist?
You were?
DR O'NEILL:
I was, yes.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes, okay. Now, could I ask you now to make an opening statement, really,
just to summarise the key issues of your experience?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, well, there the - there was an incredible overload of work. There
were two and sometimes three psychologists and sometimes 1400 people,
many, and a lot of need for help. There were - there was always it seemed
- and I haven't written this - an inadequate supply of other staff. There
was always a staff shortage of officers, so everybody was overworked.
There appeared to be at times sufficient medical staff, but that varied
a lot and the medical staff changed rapidly and frequently and that was
a problem.
MRS SULLIVAN:
Could you describe what the impact was on the detainees of the staff turnover?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, in the days of the great crowds - like, you know in the second part
of the year, when there were boats coming and hundreds of people arriving
- the detainees had to wait for things to be done for them, they had to
line up a lot for clothing and food. There was no shortage of food that
I ever saw but there were queues. There were, I thought, great efforts
made on behalf of the medical staff to accommodate the needs of the people
who all had to be examined, or at least they had to be inoculated. Sometimes
that was slower than it otherwise should have been, partly because there
were just so many of them, and sometimes there were illnesses that they
brought with them and which made those procedures slower. Because there
were such inrushes of people of different faiths and beliefs, and because
there were crowds in the various areas, there were sometimes difficulties
for the staff in managing those conflicts, which did occur quite a lot.
MRS SULLIVAN:
Is it difficult to treat patients for psychological illnesses when the
staff member that they are dealing with changes?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, of course it is, and it was very difficult to treat people in that
situation with emotional difficulties anyway, because of the great crush
of work that was all upon us. Two of us worked mostly seven days a week.
We were told not to, but there were so many people to see that we just
- we'd go there because on Saturdays and Sundays you could sometimes see
people and there would be a space for you to see them in, when during
the week there was none.
In the first part
of the year that I was there the whole of the medical section was located
in a small donga. I didn't even have a desk, I stood at a piece of the
shelf most of the time that I was in, that part because there was nowhere
to sit down, there was no place to interview people. It was very, very
difficult to function and to sometimes even get a line on what was going
on with some of the people, because you could not get accommodation to
do that.
So a lot of our work
in the first part was done out in the compounds where we would try to
sometimes see people in their dongas, or even out in the open. Those things
were very difficult and it was difficult for the staff in that the officers,
to help us with that, because they were so busy with all the running of
the business side of it, you know, supply and demand, and many of the
detainees were very demanding people.
DR OZDOWSKI:
How did they get to you? They had to fill in an application to
see you, or you were selecting them? How did it work?
DR O'NEILL:
You couldn't really select. Unless you saw somebody that you,
like, you recognised, ‘I had better try to see that person’.
They could fill out an application to see us. They could - the doctor
could call us to see somebody, the nurses could and did, the officers
could and they did, and they could approach us in the compounds which…
DR OZDOWSKI:
So what was the usual procedure? How were most of referrals you got received?
DR O'NEILL:
In the early part, most of the referrals were from staff, because we just
didn't have the facility to be anywhere. Have you seen that little donga?
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes, so you had to be in that little cubicle and just walk around the
grounds and talk to people?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, it was very difficult. Then when the new medical centre
was built we were left in that donga - so we did have space - we had two
rooms then and also a small outside one which we had, by the way, before
that was finished, I forgot about that. So there was occasionally an opportunity
to see somebody in the little tiny outside donga before the new medical
centre was finished, but we were trying to share that between three of
us you see, so that was tricky.
DR OZDOWSKI:
And who were seeing you usually, men, women, older people?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Younger, who were your typical clients?
DR O'NEILL:
Typically, they were more adults than children. I brought my
diary along to try to remember who they were. Young UAMs were seen quite
a lot more than - over time, I think than anyone else.
DR OZDOWSKI:
So they needed more support?
DR O'NEILL:
They were offered more support. They had their own officers,
they had their own, well, attached persons and they were referred more.
DR OZDOWSKI:
I see.
DR O'NEILL:
They also had…
DR OZDOWSKI:
So there was some system in place looking after them a bit better than
other detainees?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, I think so, but that then took up quite a lot of time. But
a lot of the young men who were single men, they also were expressing
enormous needs all the way through - a lot of the Iranian men - and that
did take up a lot of our time because they were already being rejected.
But when I looked through my diary it seemed to me that actually, for
me, there was a better spread of children seen than I had remembered when
I was trying to write this.
There were quite
a number of individual children I did see over time, nothing like I probably
should have. There were - I saw families with their children, I saw a
lot of children in the compounds, but as for intensity of work, the same
way I would work in my private practice, well, that was almost impossible
to do.
DR OZDOWSKI:
What were the key issues people raised with you?
DR O'NEILL:
With adults, or children?
DR OZDOWSKI:
Both.
DR O'NEILL:
Adults. The main concern for adults all through and eventually for the
children was that they didn't know how long they would be there, or if
they were given an okay from DIMIA, how long it would take to leave, or
if they had a rejection, how long it would take for the next stage so
that …
DR OZDOWSKI:
So the timing?
DR O'NEILL:
Uncertainty, in not knowing and not being able to predict anything, of
course, is the greatest cross for humans and that translated to the children
in a way. And I think since we left in December it has really got out
of control for them - for the remainders - that gross uncertainty - because
we couldn't help them, you know.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Children or young men who came to you, what were the issues they presented
to you?
DR O'NEILL:
Young men were depressed, children were disturbed by the troubles
within the compound, by seeing people troubled, by seeing their parents
disturbed, by the lack of ability they had to negotiate. An ordinary child's
way is with other children in the centre because of the religious problem.
That was pretty big for them.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Did you have also ACM staff or DIMIA officers coming to you for
professional services?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, yes. Yes, especially after riots, or at any other time, you know,
quite a number of them came.
DR OZDOWSKI:
And what were their problems usually?
DR O'NEILL:
They couldn't stand the stress - I might say though that with adults,
in any situation of work-related stress, nearly every case there is a
pre-disposition to this, that is, that - and you strike it in all kinds
of stress referrals from any job at all, that there is a background to
stress that they couldn't tolerate before they went on the job, and for
those people, trying to do the work at Woomera was just the end, you know,
like the last straw for them, especially if there was a riot. And for
some of them, they came in quite young with what I would say is minimal
training, and some of them landed straight into the middle of a riot,
the first day. Well, they couldn't tolerate it, some of those young ones
especially, and they were just very disturbed and some of them left straight
away.
DR OZDOWSKI:
One more question and then I will ask Professor Thomas to ask
you a few more questions. Listen, is it solvable, because there is so
much stress, there is so much really human despair, and I am trying to
find out to what extent psychological counselling can fix it? If you were
to put 100 psychologists there, would it fix it?
DR O'NEILL:
No.
DR OZDOWSKI:
No?
DR O'NEILL:
You can't fix it if there is - if the psychologists can't - excuse
me - help with a prediction. Like, when you work in a prison - I've worked
in prisons - before there is a sentence you can counsel people and you
can help them just work through their preparation, you can prevent suicides
for them, you can give them hope, you know, even if they know they are
going to get a life sentence for murder, you can help them tolerate this
and then when they get their sentence they know what they've got to do.
Then, they can be counselled to survive it in almost every case because
they know what will happen to them, they know how to behave and they know
where to go for help, or how to appeal for help, although that is rather
tricky, but it is different. It is quite psychologically different …
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes, different, yes.
DR O'NEILL:
… from not knowing, you cannot predict. When someone would come
to DIMIA and get, yes, a DIMIA acceptance, then they would know that they
should be going out. They didn't know when. In lots of cases it was very
quick, you know, four or five weeks, out, out, out, out.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Right.
DR O'NEILL:
But in too many cases it was not quick and they didn't know, and this
drove them quite mad because you could not say to them, well, you know,
you could say to them, ‘Now be patient, it will happen, it will
happen’. And many, many of them would say, ‘Okay, I can be
patient and I will not play up and thank you for looking after me and
I will’, and they will go. There was a time when no Afghanis were
being released, even though they had had an okay and that was a terrible
time because we couldn't tell them anything, except that we suspected
that they would never be released. That was when there was a crackdown
and the war was less bad in Afghanistan and the Minister decided that
they should go back. That was a terrible time, and just before we left
when the Iraqis - pardon me, maybe I shouldn't say that - but the fires
were started, that was a terrible time, because the tensions were really
building up then badly, you know.
DR OZDOWSKI:
So basically you couldn't solve their problems?
DR O'NEILL:
No.
DR OZDOWSKI:
And even the reduction of stress in order to achieve that holding pattern,
as somebody told us, was difficult and sometimes impossible?
DR O'NEILL:
Sometimes impossible. I mean, had there been more of us - I know that
some people just said, ‘I just want to come in here and sit down
and talk’, and one young man used to come and say, ‘I only
want three minutes. If I can just leave my compound and come and sit with
you for three minutes’ and, absolutely, he would stay three or five
minutes. That is, ‘All I want to do, I want to leave the compound,
come and sit with you and let you talk to me for three or five minutes
and I will be all right’.
And he was but -
and he was one who had to wait and wait for a long, long time until he
was gone, but many of them are so - became so obsessed and of course it's
a bit like prison - that in prison they talk about crime and getting out
and in the Centre they talked about visas and getting the visa and getting
a visa, and it became an obsession with a lot of them, so it was very
difficult for a lot of them to even take counsel of any kind.
For some it was possible
and some of them actually learned to cope much better than I ever thought
they could, and some were still there, as I believe, and have learned
to cope much better than I ever believed they could.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Professor Thomas?
PROF THOMAS:
What were the main psychological problems that you saw in Woomera
of the children?
DR O'NEILL:
Mainly depression, I think, is the main one. It is all around them, they
pick it up. They suffered fear when they saw terrible things happening.
They suffered fear when they saw their parents being upset, and if their
parents were involved in riots, then, I think these children were being
taught to riot and were having their - you know, their emotional capabilities
sort of blunted by what they had - were bearing and putting up with.
I mean, you know,
you can put an overall cover on it and say it is mainly - mainly under
the heading of depression - they lost opportunities to give expression
to ordinary childhood play. Play - I notice in one of the documents -
play is heavily accented as an absolute necessity and of course it is
- and the children played, but they didn't play enough. They didn't feel
free to play some of the time. They didn't play well, I think, a lot of
them, and the facilities for play were just not adequate. The range of
children - I mean, most of the boys played soccer, that was the big game.
PROF THOMAS:
Some
people have suggested that the only way to solve these problems is to
close down the detention centre. They aren't, but considering that these
children have to stay in the detention centre, what suggestions can you
make to improve the situation?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, I've said in, I think, my paper that I would have thought
that an internal children's centre out of the compound, like, initially,
when I first went there, there was a proposal for a school within the
centre.
PROF THOMAS:
Yes.
DR O'NEILL:
Although my colleague thought that that was not a nice idea - my psychological
colleague, he [name removed] didn't think that was a proper idea. But
actually I think it would have been and, in fact, there were attempts
made to establish school situations, but one which was full-time, where
there was full-time schooling and also clinical facilities available in
the same centre out of the compound, and I think that was initially planned
and would have been a good idea, I think. It just didn't happen.
PROF THOMAS:
Do you see some children cope better than others?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
PROF THOMAS:
So what would be the factors that would assist?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, some of them had not been through trauma in the same way as others
had in their own countries. I mean, some of the children, I know, had
great trauma in their own country. There was one child who drew a terrible
picture of a Taliban holding the head of a child that he'd cut off and
he told me he had seen this happen. I'm not sure if he did, but he - at
least the drawing came out of him spontaneously. The little boy who was
8 or 9 years old and was a UAM - I can't think of his name - he had seen,
he said, people hanged. Some of them had seen shocking things in their
lives and some of them had not.
Some of the Iraqi
children had not, as far as I could tell, and also some of the parents
were very much more capable of protecting these children than others.
Say, if there was trouble, some of the parents would just remove the children
into the donga and they wouldn't see any of it, whereas others were running
around wild, watching it all, or getting involved in it and picking it
up and becoming part of it, and some children got tough that way, I think.
I would say not the majority did, but some of them did, certainly.
PROF THOMAS:
Do you see a difference in the girls and the boys?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, I didn't see the girls in the riots so much as the boys.
I think that they were better protected and also they're not as interested
in throwing stones, or being as aggressive as the boys are, or as the
boys have learned - they have learned this. You know, a lot of them have
learned how to throw stones in their own country, there is no question
of that, they're experts, and that is the way - and also there was a danger
in their play, you know, if you got angry with your mate, you threw stones
at them, at each other - the girls didn't. I didn't see girls throwing
stones, and when there was trouble I would see boys get right into it
if I was, you know, watching the compound. The girls would stand back
and just watch.
DR OZDOWSKI:
All boys, or boys above a certain age?
DR O'NEILL:
Even young boys would.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Very young?
DR O'NEILL:
Mm. I have to say as one of the reasons why I didn't want to
be public is that I'm sure that children and women were forced into front
lines in some of those riots.
DR OZDOWSKI:
How are you sure of that?
DR O'NEILL:
Because it - I was told for one thing, and they were there, right
in the front, all the time, you know. They weren't always. Some of them
got into the habit of it and joined up voluntarily by the end, but the
last time, that last - I forget when it was - that last riot I saw …
DR OZDOWSKI:
January but you were not there so …
DR O'NEILL:
No, we were removed when there was a riot, we were removed to the medical
section ready to deal with whatever came in. We were not witness to a
lot of the rioting, and besides it was dangerous to do that, because on
one occasion we stayed in that little donga but the people started to
throw very large stones at the donga so we were removed out of the danger.
We actually - I didn't see riots and all that that some people did.
MS LESNIE:
When you said that you were told that parents might have forced children
into - you were told by whom?
DR O'NEILL:
By detainees.
MS LESNIE:
By the children themselves?
DR O'NEILL:
No.
DR OZDOWSKI:
By adult detainees?
DR O'NEILL:
Mm.
DR OZDOWSKI:
So they were using it as a strategy in the way that they pushed women
up front and then they - behind them?
DR O'NEILL:
One of them told me this and said he was very frightened at telling me
and he was very frightened to tell me anything.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Tell me one thing: lip-sewing by children, there was such a controversy
involved with it, and especially it related to the accusation that parents
either assisted or encouraged children to sew their lips. What would be
your view on that?
DR O'NEILL:
I think it may - let's put it this way, one woman - for a long time, while
I was there first, nobody did it, they had all done it before. They stopped
doing it and then for a long time nobody did it. Then this one woman did
it, or she was discovered with her lips, and she was brought up to where
we were in that donga and interviewed in an attempt to convince her -
this was shortly after she had done it, what had been done - to convince
her to give up, let the nurse cut her away. Now, one of her sons, I believe,
had his lips sewn later.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes.
DR O'NEILL:
Now, the comments by the doctor and the nurse on the woman's stitches
were that she couldn't possibly have done it herself, they were so involved,
couldn't have done it.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Because of the angle or size or whatever, yes.
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, and the complexity of the stitches.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes.
DR O'NEILL:
Her son, I believe, had his sewn. Now, I don't think she would do it to
him but I think he would have had help because it is such a difficult
thing to do and I think if any child - I mean, he is so emboldened now
that he would want it done because he was …
DR OZDOWSKI:
So it was his decision?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI:
And he may have been assisted but you are not sure?
DR O'NEILL:
I'm sure he would have been assisted but he would have asked
or demanded it to be done to him, that boy. Now, with others I don't know,
but I don't think they could do it.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Can you with any certainty say that he was assisted?
DR O'NEILL:
No, I can't, I don't know that he was.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes.
DR O'NEILL:
And they wouldn't tell us, they wouldn't tell. The only thing I saw on
the same boy was that the first time that he cut himself it was very,
very superficial, like if you slipped with a razor blade and you cut the
top skin, and his mother took him to the medical centre and then she brought
him to me. That was the same woman who had done the stitching on - or
had the severe stitching. She was very upset about this with him.
DR OZDOWSKI:
In the broader Australian community you see self harm or lip-stitching
very rarely, especially among the young people.
DR O'NEILL:
I’ve never heard of that.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Is it something cultural which was done, or was it just a sign of desperation,
or a fashion, or whatever you can call it?
DR O'NEILL:
I had not heard of it until Woomera. I mean, in prison I've never heard
of it happening there.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Well, self-harming in prisons does happen.
DR O'NEILL:
Self-harming, yes, I've seen a lot of that.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes, but not lip-sewing?
DR O'NEILL:
No. Never. It is an expression of, ‘I will not eat’, or, ‘I
will not speak’, but I don't know where it came from. Certainly
it caught on as a method.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Of protest?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
PROF THOMAS:
What do you think about the long-term damage, psychological damage, to
the children?
DR O'NEILL:
Long term. Long, long-term.
PROF THOMAS:
Yes, the impact.
DR O'NEILL:
Of those who…?
PROF THOMAS:
Who were in Woomera.
DR O'NEILL:
For a long time?
PROF THOMAS:
Then later on they get released. Do you think the impact will
be long-term?
DR O'NEILL:
Only on some. There's an impact, of course, on all our experiences, from
all our experiences. I know they will come back to some traumatic memories,
they will, some of them less than others. I know some of the children
who are now out in Adelaide are doing very nicely, going to school and
doing well and behaving well, very stable family situations. Others, like
some - like those two boys who are still at large as far as I know, the
long-term impact on them would be shocking. They also will have been,
I think - some of the children who had early traumatic experiences.
So the combination
of all this is just a carrying on of trauma on them. I think that perhaps
the children who are still inside there will have long-term problems.
It's too long and they've seen too much, and since I left there has been
more and more and more drama there.
With regard to that,
that is very concerning, because while I was there we had a mental health
team which had been pretty stable for over several months, and people
knew us and came to us and, you know, even when they couldn't get to us
they knew where to go and who to see and they had trust. Then it just
happened that the mental health team all left at the same time, just about
the same time. My contract was up, [name removed] was a week later, and
the psychiatric nurse, his contract was up. It just disappeared, you know.
And after that there
were two weeks - psychologists in for two weeks, six weeks, two weeks,
and it was patchy. And the medical centre changed leadership, changed
and changed and changed. Nurses came from everywhere, from all over Australia,
different training, different attitudes. The ability to maintain trust
in the support system has been very difficult for those people. You needed
stability in that at least, and you didn't get it.
PROF THOMAS:
Yes. So maybe, within the detention centre, at least one thing that we
can recommend probably was the stability if it is possible…
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
PROF THOMAS:
… considering the stress on the staff.
DR O'NEILL:
Absolutely. You needed that. I mean, we were shocked. [My colleague] and
I were shocked just after we left by the escalation of trouble. I mean,
it was bad enough when we were there, and even while we were there they
started those fires and they did dreadful damage, but after that - and
it was this rotation of people so fast in the mental health area, it seemed
worse by report. It just seemed a lot worse.
People wouldn't know
where to go, who to ask for. The contact we had with the nun and the priest
who have always been a stable support system in there, that of course
disappeared. And the nun told me later on, she said, ‘I don't know
who's a psychologist, and there's no point in making contact with that
psychologist because they are going to be gone in two weeks, so we can't
work together’. So that also got in the way. Mind you, it was not
easy to stay on forever. You would die of exhaustion.
PROF THOMAS:
Yes, yes. So do you have any recommendations in terms of the training,
the preparation of the staff?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, I think anyone who goes there in the mental health area should have
a background in which they understand detention of some sort, either in
prison or they understand welfare work. They understand the kind of emotional
drama that can happen to people separated from their families and, you
know, with backgrounds of - with difficult backgrounds. They should have
that, I think.
I mean, ACM may have
tried always to find people like that, I just don't know. I just know
that they rotated a lot, because actually I'm on the psychological board
and I see applications coming through for these people to be registered
in South Australia so they can function there. Two months ago we had six
applications all on the same meeting so I know they were going to have
short-term contracts.
People should have
a background and they should be encouraged to form a group so that there
would be a solid basis and a solid - you know, there would be some referral
basis that was guaranteed to be safe for the people to come and to know,
to know who they were talking to. Even though you couldn't help them always,
you could be there, there to talk to, you were there to support them or
to console them.
PROF THOMAS:
So did you witness a lot of the psychological impact on the staff,
not just the mental health staff but all the officers, the guards? I was
thinking of the famous experiment that we all learned in first year psychology
about how the prison environment can change people.
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, well there was a lot. I didn't witness what you are talking about
because the staff changed so rapidly too.
PROF THOMAS:
Okay.
DR O'NEILL:
They had six-week contracts, a lot of them. Some of them came back, a
lot of them didn't. There was some stability with it, with a few of the
leaders, with the officers, but a lot of them changed.
DR OZDOWSKI:
How long can it take from arrival before detainees’ mental health
starts to deteriorate?
DR O'NEILL:
It varies very much. I'm thinking of one woman there, she had
a number of children with her. Now, she wasn't mentally stable when she
arrived.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes, but it has happened possibly on the way or …
DR O'NEILL:
I'm sure it did.
DR OZDOWSKI:
… in her home country as well.
DR O'NEILL:
When she told me her story, you know, she just wasn't with us,
and her children suffered very greatly from her.
DR OZDOWSKI:
If somebody arrives mentally stable, how long can people take
conditions like that?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, some of them can do for a long time. You know, a few of the people
that we saw in - when their first rejection, a few of them would say -
turn around to the meeting because there were always rejections - and
say, ‘Thank you for looking after me, giving me a bed and feeding
me. I will just wait, and I will, and I will go to Court on this’.
And if they got acceptance
after Court they would say, ‘Thank you, I will wait until I am free,
I will not cause any trouble, thank you for looking after me’. Quite,
you know, a number of men did this, you know, very, very patient men with
their families back there somewhere very worried about them.
Others just went
completely berserk when they had a rejection. They just could not bear
it. It was the end of the world for them. They didn't have any power left
and that, of course, is what makes people collapse, lack of power of any
kind.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Can a family function at an institution for a longer time in
this kind of condition?
DR O'NEILL:
Some families did and some didn't. Some families functioned very well,
but not when there was consistent refusal.
DR OZDOWSKI:
But not when there was a consistent…
DR O'NEILL:
No, no, not when you got a DIMIA rejection and then you got rejection
at Court, then the families…
DR OZDOWSKI:
Disintegrating?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI:
What was happening to kids in a family that was disintegrating?
DR O'NEILL:
If they were referred they were - I used to see some of them altogether
to try to keep them whole together, or I'd see one or the other, whichever
one wanted, you know, would want to come in, and try to help that person,
you know, just maintain themselves. Some could and some couldn't.
Within the same family
you would see different strengths, but I'm thinking of one family where
there were three teenagers, and the father first of all collapsed on the
first rejection and then pulled himself together, and then the family
got stronger, much stronger and he worked with them and then they got
a second rejection and they all collapsed except him and he said, ‘No,
I'm going to support my family now’ but this was very difficult
and really - I know he did hold them together but only …
DR OZDOWSKI:
Just …
DR O'NEILL:
… just and his wife was - she had a terrible time because the teenagers
were quite drastic in their reactions. Some families could tolerate a
lot of stress and some could not, and I think they had had a rather rough
time in their past.
MS LESNIE:
The families that you felt could not cope, did you see any way
of helping them through, within the detention environment?
DR O'NEILL:
The only sorts of things I could do would be to just let them come and
sit and talk and cry, and try to get other supports for their children,
more supports for schooling, get whoever was available to work with them,
get them maybe little jobs they could do so that they would have some
self-esteem and a lot of the officers would try to help them get little
jobs. There were never enough jobs to - that's another thing - they were
bored and there were never enough jobs and they didn't want to go to school
by this stage. Why learn anything if you're never going to get out of
here? Why learn English? Why bother? In fact, that is what happened a
lot of the time. If you got the first rejection then you stopped going
to school straightaway. The other thing that I did do which I think was
frowned on by ACM was I would help them be in touch with their lawyer
so that the lawyer could try to fight for them. I wasn't supposed to do
that.
MS LESNIE:
I wanted to ask you, the Department of Immigration submission
talks about mental health assessments done for children on arrival. I
wanted to know first of all whether you did do those and second of all
what the extent of those assessments was, if you did do them?
DR O'NEILL:
You couldn't do them. It was impossible. Sometimes maybe 100 children
would arrive. You never got to them. We didn't get to them. The case officers
saw them, maybe that's what they're talking about.
MS LESNIE:
What do you mean by case officers?
DR O'NEILL:
The people who interviewed them on arrival, called case officers.
MS LESNIE:
Do you mean Immigration claims people?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, Immigration case officers, the ones who made the final decisions.
MS LESNIE:
Did they ever convey to you concerns about mental health?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, but not often.
MS LESNIE:
Did they have mental health training?
DR O'NEILL:
No.
MS LESNIE:
So they may not have identified -
DR O'NEILL:
They were a mystery to me. I don't know who they are, the case
officers, really. A very mixed bunch, I think.
MS LESNIE:
Is it true to say that there was no system by which you would
be alerted as to the mental health issues facing children and their families
upon arrival?
DR O'NEILL:
Not that there was no system, but there was very little system. The nurses
would - they would all be seen in medical and sometimes they would be
picked up there by the doctor or by a witty nurse.
MS LESNIE:
Do those doctors and nurses have mental health training?
DR O'NEILL:
Only one. Well, one - the psychiatric nurse did and there was
nearly always a psychiatric nurse but, of course, the psychiatric nurse
didn't see everybody anyhow.
MS LESNIE:
What about the records? When detainees left, would you give them a record
of their mental health history?
DR O'NEILL:
If they had been referred to psychology then a - and if - no, no, not
everyone, but if we thought that there was an ongoing mental health problem
and they would need future help a report was made and included in these
papers.
MS LESNIE:
We have heard that some people were taken out of the centre within hours
of being told that they had been given a visa?
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
MS LESNIE:
Did that hinder the process of giving them those reports that
you talk about?
DR O'NEILL:
Those reports were written and we believe they were forwarded, they were
put with their papers.
MS LESNIE:
Sorry, how were those papers - papers were sent to them afterwards?
DR O'NEILL:
With the medical - the medical file had to be sent.
MS LESNIE:
To whom?
DR O'NEILL:
To wherever they were going and I'm not sure to whom.
DR OZDOWSKI:
So you didn’t send it directly?
DR O'NEILL:
No, no.
DR OZDOWSKI:
You gave it to DIMIA or whoever, and they …
DR O'NEILL:
It was included with the medical file.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes.
DR O'NEILL:
When it was made.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Now, can I ask you perhaps for one more question, if you reached a conclusion
that say a child - 12, 13 - is suicidal or is in such a condition that
he or she needs to be removed from the centre, what would you do?
DR O'NEILL:
I would go to medical and recommend it.
DR OZDOWSKI:
In writing or you just would mention it to them?
DR O'NEILL:
No, I'd write it in their medical file. I would see the medical officer.
I would also, if I thought it was bad enough, I would go around to DIMIA
and report that.
DR OZDOWSKI:
And what would happen, how effective would your action be?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, it varied, and actually I'm trying to think whether I did actually
have a potential suicide.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Situation like…
DR O'NEILL:
There was the little girl who I believe is now in [place removed],
she's - she's probably known to you, she's ... and she - she's a very
emotionally disturbed girl. I wrote a lot of reports on this child which
also got to the Children's Hospital, to DIMIA, to the ACM head, the medical
and to the lawyer.
DR OZDOWSKI:
So it was basically lobbying that you were doing rather than
professional advice which had to be followed?
DR O'NEILL:
No, it was professional advice, all right.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes, I know, but basically, usually professional advice would be followed
by the authorities. What you had to do is to lobby everyone around so
they are listened to, didn’t you?
DR O'NEILL:
Mm. I reckon so, yes, and I did that. It seemed necessary that
everybody should know of someone who is as disturbed as that, and she
is, and was.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Were you involved in anyway with people who were put into separation cells,
especially young people, because of their behaviour or because of some
other issues?
DR O'NEILL:
The cells weren't going when I was there, the actual cells. They
were being built all the time, but there - the young Iranian men especially
who decided they would be dangerous to themselves and at one stage it
was in August, I think, we had a whole raft of them all of a sudden. They
were separated as far as was possible but it was very difficult. They
were mostly put into the Oscar compound in - at either end of a donga
with an officer sitting between them or at the door of their cell, depending
on how dangerous we thought they were to themselves. Because these were
people who had either cut themselves or were threatening to do so and
we know - knew very well that we could never stop them getting blades,
it didn't matter what we did, you couldn't stop them. So they were separated
out and they were monitored very, very heavily and visited and talked
to and talked down, you know, and until we felt that they were safe enough
to be …
DR OZDOWSKI:
To let …
DR O'NEILL:
… to have limited observations on them and then they were allowed
after a … meeting they would be given permission to sleep in their
- or have their own clothes on, sleep in their own rooms and then they
would also be monitored, it may be every ten minutes sometimes or every
hour or whatever, until - until they had decided that they would leave
it alone.
DR OZDOWSKI:
There were no suicides recorded in Woomera.
DR O'NEILL:
No.
DR OZDOWSKI:
To my knowledge, at least.
DR O'NEILL:
It didn't happen.
DR OZDOWSKI:
No, it didn't happen. People are very desperate. Why didn't it
happen?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, because of the alert behaviour I think.
DR OZDOWSKI:
This is how it works, the alert system works?
DR O'NEILL:
Our alert system worked. We were very - we made ourselves very,
very aware. That's one of the reasons why I couldn't get to the children
because we were watching the people in danger. Some of them would come
and say to us …
DR OZDOWSKI:
I've got enough, yes.
DR O'NEILL:
… say to us, ‘I feel - I feel suicidal’, you
know, and if they said that, we would say, ‘Okay, you know what
happens then if you tell me that, I have to put you under observation
and I'm doing that right now’. So a lot of them did that, a few
of them though got nearly - got to nearly kill themselves, but they …
DR OZDOWSKI:
Nearly, how nearly?
DR O'NEILL:
Well, a couple of them that I know hanged themselves, but the other detainees
…
DR OZDOWSKI:
You
are talking about children?
DR O'NEILL:
No.
DR OZDOWSKI:
No, about adults?
DR O'NEILL:
No, adults. No children did it, but the other - the other adults,
especially in Oscar were so alerted to how everyone else was feeling that
they would - they would know when they were going to - to then save them.
DR OZDOWSKI:
They would whistle-blow and say something?
DR O'NEILL:
Mm. They would actually catch them in the act and save them and they were
quite amazing those people and then they would be taken to the medical
section and some times or mostly we would go there and interview them.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Are there any further questions? If not – Dr. O'Neill, thank you
very much for your time.
DR O'NEILL:
All right.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Thank you also for your statutory declaration, we know it is
made in confidence so if we would like to use it in any way, shape or
form we will consult you …
DR O'NEILL:
Yes.
DR OZDOWSKI:
… before we do it.
DR O'NEILL:
I understand.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Yes, especially with attribution.
DR O'NEILL:
Yes, thank you.
DR OZDOWSKI:
Thank you very much. So ten minutes possibly, or fifteen, for
coffee.
Last
Updated 12 August 2003.
