“I knew that things were not good in the Nauru Detention Centre but it didn’t occur to me that the government would send babies to Nauru without ensuring that their most basic needs would be met, including their need to be fed.”
Last month, a five month old baby named Asha and her parents were transferred from Australia to a detention centre in Nauru. Mother and daughter were so traumatised by the experience that Asha can no longer be breastfed. For the past two and a half weeks, Sydney academic Dr Karleen Gribble has been talking to Asha’s mother on the phone to help her get her milk back and to formula feed her daughter in the safest way possible.
Dr Gribble spoke recently about Asha’s life and her mother’s struggle.
I’m not a refugee advocate, I have never before been involved in asylum seeker or refugee issues in Australia. I’m a university academic with a PhD and my area of expertise is infant feeding, particularly infant feeding in emergencies.
For the past 2.5 weeks I’ve been speaking on the phone on a regular basis with Asha’s mum. I was asked to talk to her because she was having real difficulty in feeding her baby. The transfer from Australia to Nauru had been traumatic, and she had stopped breastfeeding as a result. She and her baby were in a dreadful situation because in a place like the Nauru Detention Centre, problems with feeding a baby could be fatal.
Top Comments
These people are dwindling Australians. Children in poor nations are seen as one more body to work. These people say they are Christians from Nepal. They couldn't cross over to India where there are several Christians?
After WW1 the Germans started rounding up the Jews putting them in detention those they viewed may have contributed to the loss of WW1 this led to the death camps of WW2 there is a fine line between detention and going that step further. I fear we are starting to go that one step further because people are starting to forget what happened in the past and that is why we have a lot of the laws we have especially the one which allows any person feeling persecution to enter our country with or without correct paperwork by any means possible to seek refuge. This law was made to prevent what happened in the past, to ensure if we forgot our compassion we would not forget the laws of our constitution. No instead we are finding loop holes. My family fled Poland for Australia lucky hey or I would not be here today. Sadly we live in a country where people have become too entitled too self involved we live in a country people don't care because they don't know what real hardship is. So if you read this and don't care your not an Australia because Australia is a multicultural country Australian give a hand!!!
You're an idiot if you think this is anything like the Nazi death camps.