An Australian senate inquiry into serious allegations and conditions at the Nauru detention centre has heard medical staff were told not to report psychological health problems suffered by asylum seekers.
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The former mental health director for International Health and Medical Services on Nauru, Peter Young, says there is an unwillingness by the department to accept detainees have genuine mental health issues relating to their time in detention.
He says the department's chief medical officer told medical staff not to report on psychological harm suffered by asylum seekers.
"When it came to mental health issues, we were repeatedly told that when making recommendations about people's mental health and the harms that it accrued to their mental health in Nauru, that we should not say, it was unacceptable to put in reports to the department that people with mental health had been harmed by being in detention in Nauru."
Photo: RNZ