The Australian Government contract to provide healthcare to detainees has already cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars, but doctors say the medical care provided offshore in Manus Island is dangerously inadequate. On Four Corners some of Australia's most senior doctors and medical staff with experience in the offshore detention system are speaking out. They say the Border Force Act could see them risk two years in jail for disclosing information about Australia's asylum seeker detention system. Despite this, the doctors have chosen to talk. Their story centres on the case of a Manus Island detainee, Hamid Khazaei, who died following a bacterial infection in 2014. What started as a skin infection poisoned his body, leaving him brain dead. The details of his rapid decline and the treatment he received are shocking. Doctors involved in his care are speaking publicly for the first time, giving a rare inside account of the medical treatment available in our offshore detention centres.
Four Corners is Australia's premier television current affairs program. It has been part of the Australian story since August 1961, exposing scandals, triggering inquiries, firing debate, confronting taboos and interpreting fads, trends and sub-cultures. Its consistently high standards of journalism and film-making have earned international recognition and an array of Walkleys, Logies and other national awards.