The former boss of Australia's Border Force has detailed claims of drug dealing, prostitution and squalor at Australia's immigration facilities on Nauru.

Key points:

Roman Quaedvlieg described one refugee village as "reminiscent of the world's slums"

Roman Quaedvlieg described one refugee village as "reminiscent of the world's slums" He visited a medical facility after a refugee "tried to immolate herself"

He visited a medical facility after a refugee "tried to immolate herself" He described a woman's "primal screams emanating from the surgical ward" at the hospital

Roman Quaedvlieg, who was sacked earlier this year, has written about the conditions facing nearly 1,000 asylum seekers and refugees held on the Pacific island on behalf of the Australian Government.

Mr Quaedvlieg described one refugee village as "reminiscent of the world's slums" and said the island's hospital was in "ruin".

"The roof had partially collapsed and sheets of what looked like asbestos were conspicuous in their angularity," he wrote of the hospital.

"It looked ramshackle and rickety, with neglected grounds."

Mr Quaedvlieg said he visited the medical facility soon after a refugee "tried to immolate herself".

In a 3,800-word reflection on Nauru, he described the woman's "primal screams emanating from the surgical ward".

"I calculated that it had been at least 15 minutes from the time I had seen her carted away in the ambulance and I wondered why morphine or similar had not yet been administered to relieve her pain," he wrote.

The former senior public servant said the burns were "primarily on her legs and not life-threatening".

Mr Quaedvlieg visited the small nation in 2015, before upgrades to the hospital were completed.

The following year, then-immigration minister Peter Dutton told News Corp that a new wing of the hospital was "certainly much better than some [hospitals] I've seen in regional Australia".

The ABC has previously reported about the danger of asbestos on Nauru, including in the hospital's maternity wing.

Mr Quaedvlieg was sacked by the Governor-General in March this year after the Government found he helped his girlfriend get a job within the organisation.

Drugs, prostitution and provocations

The former Border Force chief also described visiting a village set up for those granted refugee status, known as Fly Camp.

He detailed a conversation he had with a Nauruan who was employed by the Australian detention centre contractor.

"I asked him about drugs in the camp and he asked me what I wanted and how much," Mr Quaedvlieg wrote.

"I asked him about the availability of alcohol in the camp and he told me it depended on the reliability of contraband shipments, but he showed me an area off a slope at the edge of the camp where thousands of bottles and cans lay discarded.

"I asked him about prostitution and he pointed at three teenage Nauruan girls seated waiting on the other side of the road for me to leave.

"I asked him about the attacks on the camp by locals and he smiled wryly as he told me of the provocations."

Asylum seekers have lived in tents on Nauru in the past. ( Supplied: Department of Immigration and Citizenship )

Mr Quaedvlieg said other refugee villages, located outside the detention centre, were "modern" and "harmonious", but said Fly Camp was "jolting in its squalidness".

"Everywhere I walked I was approached by residents complaining about the quantity and quality of the food, the lack of air conditioning, the absence of employment opportunities, and fear about the minimal security against attacks on the camp, and its residents, by local gangs."

Mr Quaedvlieg, a former ACT Policing commissioner, likened the detention camp to prisons he had visited.

"Everywhere around me I recorded disarming signs of the drudgery of an incarcerated population," he wrote.

The former senior bureaucrat recounted seeing a gay refugee couple holding hands, and being told about violence the pair faced.

"I asked whether homosexuality was culturally accepted on Nauru. I was told it wasn't and that these two refugee men were the only openly gay men in the 10,000 strong population," he wrote.

"They had consciously chosen to live overtly as a gay couple and for their perceived sin they had been harassed often and assaulted occasionally."

He also described a meeting with Nauruan President Baron Waqa.

"I [extended] feigned deference to a Head of State whose country had a lesser population than the number of officers in my department," Mr Quaedvlieg wrote.

"My interaction with him was perfunctory, he going through the automaton motions of extending sovereign courtesy to a senior representative of a patron country."

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection, as it was known last year, employed nearly 14,000 staff.

‎The US Government estimates Nauru's local population to be about 11,500 people.

In a public statement about a separate matter, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said: "Mr Quaedvlieg is bitter about the loss of his job."

"The fact is Mr Quaedvlieg has been under enormous pressure since the commencement of the investigation by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity which resulted in his termination as the Australian Border Force Commissioner for misconduct," Mr Dutton said.

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