@article{ref1,
title="Detained asylum seekers, health care, and questions of human(e)ness",
journal="Australian and New Zealand journal of public health",
year="2003",
author="Koutroulis, Glenda",
volume="27",
number="4",
pages="381-384",
abstract="This paper contains some personal observations of life inside Woomera Detention Centre and certain aspects of the detained asylum seeker experience. This is from my own reference point as a psychiatric nurse who in 2002 undertook a six-week contract at Woomera, and from my subsequent sociological reflections on this experience. I draw attention to the disintegrative effect of detention on the individual and the bleakness of everyday life symbolically expressed in forms of self-harm. Then, through the example of medication administration, I show the vulnerability of those in detention to bureaucratic procedures that become micropolitical sites, providing the machinery for dehumanizing acts. I conclude by calling for sociologists, health care workers, and the public health community in general to take a more active political stance against a Government and its policies that actively erode spirit, the body and, for some, even life.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1326-0200",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}