Refusing medical help

NAURU – A female asylum seeker on Nauru with a life-threatening heart condition is refusing an offer to be transferred overseas for medical treatment, saying she will not go without her son.

The 55-year-old Iranian woman, known as Fatemeh, has been judged to be, “at extremely high and imminent risk of having a catastrophic cardiac event such as heart attack, or sudden death due to arrhythmias” by a doctor asked to review her medical history.

Fatemeh, who asked to remain anonymous, said Australian Border Force officials made the offer conditional on her son staying behind.

She said her son, who is 17, has mental health problems, has no-one to look after him on Nauru and is very dependent on her.

“It’s not important for me where they transfer me, I just want to be treated,” Fatemeh said.

“But wherever I go, I have to go with my son – I won’t go without him.”

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Australia commissioned a review of Fatemeh’s medical history.

Sydney University Professor of Medicine Maria Fiatarone Singh, who performed the review, said Fatemeh needed further tests and treatment unavailable on Nauru.

“At the moment, she’s basically being under-treated for the kind of conditions that she has, which means she’s at risk of having a heart attack or sudden death,” Professor Fiatarone Singh said.

“Any other person in Australia would have been in the operating theatre a long time ago.”

In recent years, Fatemeh travelled to Darwin and Port Moresby for treatment with her son.

She fled Iran with her son and they have been on Nauru in immigration detention since 2013.

“For five years I’ve been living in hell, in the dark, and I don’t have any hope for the future,” she said.

Doctor Nick Martin was the senior medical officer on Nauru for most of last year and provided treatment to Fatemeh.

“She was given a very tough choice – go and have some treatment which will potentially save your life, but to do that you have to give up everything that you care about, and everything you have,” Dr Martin said.

“All she has in this world is her son, and so I found the decision to refuse her to travel with him unbelievable really.”

The Department of Home Affairs said decisions about medical transfers were made on a case-by-case basis according to clinical need, in consultation with the contracted health services provider and the government of Nauru.

It said it did not comment on individual cases.