YAREN – The mother of an 11-year-old boy with a severely broken arm on Nauru is calling on the Australian government to allow her son to leave the island to undergo surgery.

Erfan Paridari broke his arm when he fell off his bicycle last month and requires urgent surgery to reset the break and prevent further damage to his arm.

The boy lives in the Nauru community, outside of the detention centre, after his family were granted refugee status, but forced to remain on the island.

Erfan’s arm was set at the local Nauru Hospital, but Australian specialists consulted by the group Doctors for Refugees say without corrective surgery, he will lose the full use of his arm.

The boy’s mother, Maryam, said immigration officials told her Australia has agreed to send doctors to provide treatment, but she does not want the surgery to be carried out at Nauru Hospital because it is poorly equipped and has unsanitary conditions.

“They will send a team from Australia, but I repeat – I was made angry because I know Nauru Hospital is not qualified to do an operation on my son’s arm,” she told the ABC.

“Erfan needs an MRI. In Nauru, they don’t have MRI. Send Erfan anywhere, but not in Nauru, I don’t like in Nauru.”

During the week, the Nauru government said its request for a medical team had been granted, but Immigration Minister Peter Dutton and the Department refused to confirm that was happening.

Dutton told 2GB radio this week there were medical services available in Nauru.

“The Nauruan government obviously has the system up there to provide people with support that need it when it comes to medical attention,” he said.

However, Sydney-based paediatrician, Dr David Isaac, who visited Nauru in December and has been outspoken about the conditions on the island, said he understood the boy’s mother’s panic.

“She’s had some treatment, which everyone said, ‘Trust us, we’re doctors’, and that treatment has not been successful,” he said.

“What would you feel in that setting, in a foreign country, with no-one telling you what’s going on? I think it’s completely understandable.”

Dr Isaac said the conditions of the hospital are inadequate.

“I don’t think you’d want to have your forearm set there or your child’s forearm set there,” he said.

“I don’t think Peter Dutton would want to have his child’s arm set there.

“The conditions are not sufficiently clean for any of us to be happy.”

On Thursday Dutton reportedly denied reports his department had planned to fly the boy 10,000 kilometres from Nauru to India for surgery.

His family claims they were notified on Wednesday he would receive surgery in India.

“We will provide support otherwise, but the story about going to India is not true,” he said.

The Nauru government had asked Australia to send a specialist medical team to perform the operation on the island, after 11 Australian doctors who had examined the boy’s X-rays warned he was at risk of being permanently disabled without surgery.

Australia had accepted the request and is sending the team, a spokesman for the Nauru government told AAP.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young had called on Dutton to bring the boy to Australia for treatment.

“For heavens sake, this is about the urgent care needed by a young boy who is suffering and in pain,” she said.