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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.