Christmas Island detainees, including children, suffering life-threatening conditions and mental health problems, doctors say (ABC)

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Doctors treating asylum seekers on Christmas Island have detailed disturbing allegations that some detainees are suffering life-threatening medical conditions as a result of detention, and children are showing serious developmental and mental health problems.

Associate Professor Karen Zwi from the University of New South Wales says there were 356 children on Christmas Island when she visited there recently, with many held there for up to nine months.

She says children in detention are showing physical health problems like rotting teeth and fungal infections, along with developmental and mental health problems.

Associate Professor Zwi says there were more than 40 unaccompanied children on Christmas Island when she visited.

"While Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is their legal guardian, I believe this duty of care is being abdicated," she said.

The revelations come as new details are released about the number of asylum seekers with mental health problems.

Australia's Immigration Department says more than 400 asylum seekers in offshore detention - including children - have been diagnosed with a mental illness since September.

The Department says between September and April, more than 170 asylum seekers on Manus Island have been diagnosed with depression, stress or anxiety.

Officials say 236 adults and 15 children have been diagnosed on Nauru.

A full-time psychiatrist has only been available in Manus Island since late January and there have been gaps in the doctor's availability.

Immigration Department spokesman Mark McCormack told a Senate Estimates hearing that IHMS (International Health and Medical Services) has been trying to deliver a service.

"I think there were some gaps. I can't recall a gap of three months though senator, just to be clear. It was only in January this year that IHMS identified the need for a full-time psychiatrist services on Manus," he said.

Detainees likely to suffer lifelong complications: doctor

The further allegations about the health of asylum seekers have been outlined at a forum at the University of New South Wales.

Dr John-Paul Sanggaran worked as a doctor on Christmas Island. He says people on the island are referred to by their boat number, not their name.

"When they get to the island their medications are destroyed, with glasses and medical aids are taken away," he said.

"The urgency which with some of these patients needed specialist and often surgical care cannot be emphasised enough."

On Christmas Island, doctors boasted of doing 90 medical assessments in one hour. Dr Sanggaran says a lack of medical equipment means doing a proper assessment is unreliable and abnormalities are not picked up.

He said it was often due to the conditions of detention that urgent medical needs of asylum seekers had arisen in the first place.

Dr Sanggaran says because of their detention, people have suffered conditions which put them in a potentially life-threatening situation and they will probably suffer lifelong complications.

"These patients were frequently advocated for by medical officers, but efforts were stifled due to a contrived limitation on the capacity of transfer places and postponements by faceless individuals within the department whom had never actually reviewed the patient," he said.

"We were told that the Department of Immigration was accepting the risk of delaying transfers.

"I cannot accept that a governmental department can absolve me from my professional responsibility to my patients. It cannot remove my duty of care."

Dr Sanggaran said pregnant women were being treated with vaccines that could harm their unborn babies, and that all detainees were given Malarone to prevent malaria without individual consultation, something that is "unethical and dangerous".

UNSW Professor Heather Worth says human rights need to be central to any doctor's practice.

"We need to make sure that this core principle is adhered to, regardless of the circumstances," she said.

The ABC sent details of the allegations raised by Dr Sanggaran and Associate Professor Zwi to the spokesman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison.

The ABC has not received a response to the allegations outlined in this story.

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