Asylum Seekers Centre

The Asylum Seekers Centre of NSW (ASC) health care program offers a range of services, including:

• on-site primary and holistic health care

• assistance in meeting pharmaceutical costs for life-threatening and other serious conditions

• referrals for pro bono dental, optometry, psychiatric and other forms of specialist treatment

• advocacy for fee waivers, reductions or payment plans on emergency hospital procedures

   Our health care program is currently staffed by:

• part-time Health Care Program Coordinator/registered nurse

• a volunteer doctor, feldenkrais practitioner, masseur and naturopath - each of whom attend the centre half a day per week

Our volunteer doctor, Professor Mark Harris of the University of NSW’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine, has been treating patients at our clinic for over five years. Our other on-site services are provided by The Barefoot Doctors  – a network of holistic health practitioners offering voluntary treatment to select disadvantaged communities.

Our on-site health care program is supplemented by a network of primary, specialist and holistic health practitioners who regularly treat our clients pro-bono in their practices, and the critical support of a few private and public health institutions and networks, including St Vincents and Mater Health Sydney.

Given the complex and critical health needs of many of our destitute clients and our extremely limited resources, eligibility for our health care program is generally restricted to asylum seekers who are unable to access either Medicare or the government-funded, Red Cross-administered Asylum Seekers Assistance Scheme (ASAS), which includes health care of Medicare equivalence.

During 2005-06 our health care program recorded over 1000 occasions of service.