Medevac bill yet to become law but is already threatened by new Nauru telemedicine ban

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Scott Morrison has backed a claim by Peter Dutton that the arrival of refugees to Australia for medical care would “displace” Australian citizens from medical services.

The home affairs minister made his claim in the context of continued criticism of the medevac bill – passed by parliament earlier this month and given royal assent on Friday afternoon.

It comes after the Nauru government passed a new law that threatens to undermine the bill before it is even law, by banning telemedicine on the island, forcing Médecins Sans Frontières to suspend its psychological services.

The medevac bill, which represented a historic defeat for the Coalition, was designed to facilitate the transfer of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru to Australia with the recommendation of two doctors. Transfers can be overridden by the minister on security grounds.

But on Thursday Dutton said it would result in the displacement of Australians seeking medical care.

“People who need medical services are going to be displaced from those services, because if you bring hundreds and hundreds of people from Nauru and Manus down to our country, they are going to go into the health network, let’s be frank about it,” he said.

“I don’t want to see Australians who are in waiting lines at public hospitals kicked off those waiting lines because people from Nauru and Manus are now going to access those health services.”

The independent MP Kerryn Phelps said only about 70 people were likely to need emergency transfer and accused Dutton of running a scare campaign.

7 News Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) Home Affairs Minister @PeterDutton_MP on asylum seekers: “We’re seeing people at hospitals missing out on medical services because people are taking it from Nauru and Manus. Australians will be angry about that as well.” #auspol #7News pic.twitter.com/ICtWdHN7k8

On Friday morning the prime minister said Dutton’s comments were “simple math”.

“If we’re going to treat more people in Australia, then obviously they’re going to take the place of people getting that treatment anyway,” Morrison told ABC radio.

Phelps told Guardian Australia that Morrison and Dutton were refusing to accept they had lost a vote in parliament.

“Like a pair of petulant schoolboys they are running around with a box of matches trying to light fires,” she said.

“As one scare campaign runs out of puff, Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison simply start another one.

“There are more than 700 public hospitals in Australia with more than 61,000 beds and a further 630 private hospitals with more than 33,000 beds. We can easily cope with 70 extra patients.”

The Labor MP Anthony Albanese labelled Dutton’s comments “grubby politics”.

“All the government’s got left is a fear campaign because they don’t have a positive agenda for governing the country,” he said on Friday morning.

Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) This is a desperate Government that has run out of ideas and run out of puff #AusPol pic.twitter.com/wzFc2Y6uDB

The Labor MP Stephen Jones tweeted, in reference to Dutton’s previous ministerial role: “Australia’s worst health minister puts down his Dog Whistle and reaches for a Megaphone.”

The medevac bill became law on Friday, but already faces serious hurdles with the passing of a new law in Nauru.

The Nauruan government this week banned telemedicine for residents of Nauru. Exceptions are only allowed with the permission of the cabinet. Under the new law, registered health practitioners and services are banned from conducting telemedicine or aiding, colluding or abetting a Nauruan resident to conduct telemedicine.

“No person including the hospital, a health practitioner or a health service provider shall act in any manner whatsoever, at the request or opinion of any health and medical service provider from outside the jurisdiction of the republic, who intends to or renders health and medical services by telemedicine contrary to these regulations,” it said.

The new law comes just weeks after MSF launched its own telehealth service in an effort to resume treating its patients after the Nauru government kicked it off the island last year.

Medevac hopes are dashed by Coalition's cowardice and legal sophistry | Nick Martin Read more

The executive director of MSF Australia, Paul McPhun, said the new regulations were clearly designed to obstruct the possibility of developing “meaningful referral pathways for emergency patients”.

He said it would be “unethical” for MSF to continue treating its patients under the new circumstances, and had to suspend its service.

“These new regulations constitute yet another major obstruction to the provision of independent medical care on the island. The decision diminishes access to mental healthcare for Nauruan, refugee and asylum seeker patients alike,” McPhun said.

More than 40 people on Nauru had contacted MSF seeking to resume their treatment in the past fortnight.

MSF said 30% of its 208 refugee patients had attempted suicide, and 30% of its Nauruan patients “appeared to have been neglected in terms of medical care, mainly due to a lack of available mental healthcare prior to MSF’s arrival”.

“We are acutely concerned for our former patients,” McPhun said. “We simply don’t know how much more these people can take.”

The new regulations, combined with other recently passed laws that banned overseas medical referrals by any doctor other than those at the Nauruan hospital, threaten to derail the intended process of the medevac bill, which is also facing numerous other hurdles.

The government has not yet appointed people to the independent medical panel established by the medevac bill, despite receiving nominations, the Australian reported on Friday.

And the government is also maintaining it will send sick people to Christmas Island before mainland Australia, despite Christmas Island having little capacity to treat serious cases.