Australia: IN his whitewashed report on the detention scandals, government employee Mick Palmer refers to Cornelia Rau's four months in Baxter detention centre as "Anna's journey".But he didn't live it and would have no idea in hell what that woman went through and you can immediately sense the cover up in his report because this was no journey but a living nightmare.
Using the name she took at the time of her admission to the South Australian holding centre, Mr Palmer tells how her mental health deteriorated inside Baxter, yet systemic failures allowed her to remain on the periphery of psychiatric care even after the intervention of the state's director of mental health.
In other words even though she was being caused a mental illness like in all institutional detention and prison systems she got little or no help. But this wasn't a one off case this is every detention centre and prison in Australia.
Apparently, Anna arrived at Baxter, on the desert outskirts of Port Augusta, on October 6 without any documentation on her medical history. She was assessed and screened by a contract nurse but things soon got out of hand.
"She was unco-operative during the medical induction, by crying, being confused and upset," Mr Palmer says.
However, if any person was dragged into detention on false premise that is exactly how one would react and this clearly shows that she was illegally detained which would cause someone a mental condition.
Perhaps quite angry, alarmed and frustrated by being restrained Anna obviously rejected her illegal and degrading treatment at the Baxter gate.
An assessment by Adam Micallef, a psychologist employed by Global Solutions Ltd, the company with the detention centre contract, was ordered for the next day as a "precaution".
And whatever he said was only going to be a 'Global Solution' regardless of his 'psych' credentials these people have an obligation to the system first and any assessment by a psychologist working for the system would advise the departments policy. The idea is that his priority would have been to get the detainee to accept the situation, no doubt.
Medical papers were sent from Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre, including discharge papers from the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Micallef decided her problems appeared "behavioural", rather than stemming from mental illness.
"Anna's behaviour continued to be bizarre," Mr Palmer says.
In other words she outright rejected what was happening to her and this would cause her frustration and anger as it would any other person who was being illegally detained in custody.
Critically, Micallef wrote that Baxter was not equipped to handle cases such as Anna's, and he recommended that she be moved to an all-female compound such as the one in Villawood detention centre in Sydney. The option was never pursued.
Critically? Baxter was not equipped to lock up completely innocent Australian citizens and Micallef could have recommended that she be set free if he'd understood her problem, but his obligation to his employ, his signed ethics and efficacy agreement with Global Solutions would have clearly prevented him from understanding her.
She should not be in custody at all she was most likely telling him this and obviously he was merely describing her frustration and anger as a mental condition and not listening to her plea for mercy.
Anna had been a month in Baxter when she was seen by the centre's consulting psychiatrist, Andrew Frukacz. Despite two attempts, he was unable to make a definitive diagnosis. He recommended she be assessed in a mental health facility.
But like Micallef he too would have and obligation to Global Solutions end of story and usually that is what happens in custody anywhere in Australia. If a detained person does not accept the view of the psychologist then the authorities send a person to a psychiatrist in the hope that if a person is 'medicated' that may relieve the pressure and strain of not accepting being detained in conditions that are unimaginable.
Furthermore, Frukacz did not acknowledge that Ms Rau had a serious problem of being illegally detained either and there is no mention of her asking for her freedom by him?
Acting on Frukacz's advice, attempts were made to bring in South Australia's Rural Remote Mental Health Service to assess Anna.
"The RRMHS triage team seemed unsure of their relationship with Baxter and said they would need to clarify matters and then get back," Mr Palmer says. "They did not do so."
On November 12, Micallef called a psychiatrist working at Glenside -- South Australia's only mental health facility -- to discuss Anna's "issues" with Baxter staff.
The psychiatrist advised that Anna's problems sounded behavioural but later told Mr Palmer no sense of urgency was conveyed to him at the time.
Behavioural "Not accepting one's situation" quote un-quote!
The next day the RRMHS took Anna off their books as to be placed at its allocated beds in Glenside. But no-one at Baxter was told.
Micallef sent Anna's psychiatric assessments to Glenside but there was not enough detail in the file to admit her to its waiting list.
On New Years's Eve last year, NSW psychiatrist Louise Newman, Adelaide refugee lawyer Claire O'Conner and a local doctor visited 12 detainees at Baxter.
After examining several of the detainees, they decided to commit two under the state's mental health act.
By January 4, Baxter staff urged Glenside to accept and assess Anna.
Three days later a rural doctor contracted to Baxter diagnosed possible "schizoid or schizotypal personality features and possibly schizophrenia", but further discussion with a Glenside psychiatrist resulted in no action.
On January 24, South Australia's then director of mental health services, Jonathon Phillips, offered to have Anna assessed at Glenside. Department of Immigration officials in Canberra sought RRMHS assistance to arrange this, but its director suggested she be examined at Baxter.
"It was clear the efforts made by Glenside, RRMHS and Baxter were unco-ordinated and no one took overall responsibility for the arrangements to admit Anna to in-patient care," Mr Palmer says.
Eight days later, after media reports of a mentally ill German woman in Baxter, it was finally decided that Anna be assessed under the Mental Health Act.
That same day, it was revealed she was in fact Cornelia Rau.
Ed: The poster spent 7 years in custody and has an extensive knowledge and understanding of not only how psychologists and psychiatrists work in the detention system in Australia but also, how they learned their trade as the "gate-keepers" to the role of abnormality.
Common sense is the first option in understanding Cornelia's diagnosis in relation to what she must have said. She was taken into custody as an illegal and treated as such and she would have told the 'authorities' and the 'medics' that story however that information 'somehow' fell on 'deaf ears' and was described in Psychiatric jargon as 'behavioural'.
By Jeremy Roberts, Richard Sproull and just Us 29 June 05
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