title: Detained asylum seekers, health care, and questions of human(e)ness.
abstract: This paper contains some personal observations of life inside Woomera Detention Centre and certain aspects of the detained asylum seeker experience. This is from my own reference point as a psychiatric nurse who in 2002 undertook a six-week contract at Woomera, and from my subsequent sociological reflections on this experience. I draw attention to the disintegrative effect of detention on the individual and the bleakness of everyday life symbolically expressed in forms of self-harm. Then, through the example of medication administration, I show the vulnerability of those in detention to bureaucratic procedures that become micropolitical sites, providing the machinery for dehumanizing acts. I conclude by calling for sociologists, health care workers, and the public health community in general to take a more active political stance against a Government and its policies that actively erode spirit, the body and, for some, even life.
authors.affiliation: RiverRedGum@bigpond.com
authors.forename: Glenda
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Koutroulis
mesh_terms: D003866:Depressive Disorder; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D011057:Politics; D011640:Public Policy; D012036:Refugees / Q000523:psychology*; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D013021:South Australia