Workers at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital are refusing to discharge children back to detention centres over concerns for their health.

Staff yesterday held a protest to demand the Federal Government halt its policy of holding children in detention, the Herald Sun reports.

“We see a whole range of physical, mental, emotional and social disturbances that are really severe,” one doctor at the protest told the newspaper.

“We have no hope of improving these things when we have to discharge our patients back into detention.”

Approximately 100 children are locked up in immigration detention centres within Australia.

More than 400 staff members from the Melbourne hospital gathered at a protest yesterday to show their support for the cause, demanding the government remove children from the detention facilities.

The protest was held despite two laws passed by Federal Parliament earlier this year threatening health workers who complained about the conditions of immigration detention centres with up to two years in jail.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton responded to the protests, confirming the government’s policy on children in detention would not be changed.