Dual loyalty, medical ethics, and health care in offshore asylum-seeker detention

Abstract

This chapter examines the ethical issues related to the practice of health care in an environment where human rights are absent, specifically relating to the conditions for refugees and asylum seekers who arrive by sea in Australian territory. The ethical considerations of working within the offshore detention environment are discussed. Health-care workers in these harsh environments often have divided loyalties, when duties to their patients conflict with duties to their employer or to the state. The author draws on published accounts and interviews with health-care providers who have worked on Manus Island and Nauru and Christmas Island, the sites used by Australia for offshore detention of asylum seekers.