Immigrants in detention allowed few hours of fresh air a week

Immigrants at Lyster Barracks, including women and children, are allowed as little as a few hours of fresh air a week, particularly when the place gets overcrowded, Jesuit Refugee Service director Fr Paul Pace said.

Vulnerable immigrants, including pregnant women and children, he said, are permitted as little as two hours of fresh air a week - two one-hour sessions per week.

The Home Affairs Ministry reacted saying two hours was an exaggeration, pointing out that "they could be allowed three to four hours" of fresh air depending on the number of immigrants housed there at any one time.

"The place can take 200 people and sometimes there are more," a spokesman said. For security reasons, he added, the army has to manage the time immigrants get to spend outside their assigned rooms. "In any case, the women and the children, who are considered vulnerable, are usually released within a few days."

But even on this point, Fr Pace insisted that the screening of such individuals at times took far longer than necessary. "Sometimes they are released in days, sometimes in weeks," he said.

Fr Pace's comments were made at a press conference during which a report by the international non governmental organisation (NGO) Medecines du Monde (MDM) was launched at the end of its four-month humanitarian mission in Malta.

The poor living conditions of immigrants both at detention centres and in open centres emerge in the report as a major contributor to the immigrants' high rate of health problems.

It pours cold water on the idea that tuberculosis may pose a threat to the wider Maltese population. Statistics in the report, for instance, show that of some 9,800 immigrants screened since 2002, 36 have been found positive.

"There is no reason to believe tuberculosis could be a threat to the population at large," the NGO's chief envoy Niklas Luhman said.

Dr Luhman, a German medical doctor and a specialist in international public health from MDM, has been providing a 20-hour a week medical service, along with a nurse, to the two immigrant open centres at Hal Far and Marsa, while carrying out research on the situation with regard to immigrants' access to health services.

He criticised the government's approach to HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases, pointing out that there is as yet no policy covering the issue.

The head of the genito-urinary-clinic at Boffa Hospital, Phillip Carabott, is quoted in the report saying that he was trying to introduce a policy for the past eight years and complaining that it failed to materialise because of the strong influence of the Catholic Church in Maltese politics.

MDM's service provided a welcome pressure valve for the public health service, which Dr Luhman said, is under stress in certain areas. He pointed out that the ambulance service to the centres has dropped by half and immigrant visits to the health centres also saw a significant reduction. The NGO praised the recent introduction of a daily health service at detention centres but complained it had not been granted access to pay a visit.

MDM filed a request a couple of weeks ago and got no reply. However, the Home Affairs Ministry said yesterday it had given its go ahead to the chief immigration officer but that this had not been relayed yet to the NGO.

Overall, Dr Luhman was highly critical of the government's detention policy, saying it exacerbates an already difficult problem.