A nurse working in a Darwin detention centre for asylum seekers has been sacked for expressing negative political opinions about detention. The nurse's employer, International Health and Medical Services (IHMS), sent the nurse a letter terminating her position at the centre after managers and Immigration Department staff complained about the nurse's dissenting views. 

Specifically, the nurse was fired for expressing her opinion that mandatory detention contributes to mental illness suffered by asylum seekers. Meanwhile a document recently submitted to a parliamentary inquiry shows that a significant number of detainees are treated for self-inflicted injuries including voluntary starvation.

IHMS spokeswoman Melissa Lysaght says that staff have the right to political expression; however, she says, they are still required to work within the team environment, and that in hindsight the wording of the termination letter was incorrect. 

Nevertheless, strong support against mandatory detention has been raised by important medical and health bodies, including the Australian Medical Association (AMA), Australian Psychological Society, the federal government's Detention Health Advisory Group, and the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses.

While the government is attempting to shift more family and children asylum seekers into community detention, at the AMA's parliamentary dinner, AMA president Steve Hambleton attacked the ongoing mandatory detention policy, and said that paediatricians and psychiatrists who have been inside the detention centres have reported terrible stories about young children requiring intravenous and gastric drips after being caught up in their parents' hunger strikes.