http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/12397106/migrant-boat-sinks-off-indonesia-200-feared-dead (19 Dec 2011)
MIGRANT BOAT SINKS OFF INDONESIA, 200 FEARED DEAD
AFP, December 19, 2011, 1:07 am
WATULIMO, Indonesia (AFP) - More than 200 people were feared dead after a heavily overloaded boat packed mostly with Afghan and Iranian asylum-seekers sank off Indonesia en route to Australia, rescuers said Sunday.
Australia's government called the sinking "a terrible tragedy", but came under pressure from campaign groups which said its tough approach to refugees was partly responsible for such disasters.
The fibreglass boat had a capacity of 100 but was carrying about 250 people when it sank on Saturday, 40 nautical miles off eastern Java, in heavy rain and high waves, Indonesian officials said.
Thirty-three survivors were plucked from the shark-infested waters, officials said, after the vessel sank along a well-worn -- and occasionally lethal -- route from Java to Australia's remote Christmas Island.
Officials said there was little hope of finding any other passengers alive, which would make the sinking Indonesia's deadliest migrant boat accident.
"We sent out five boats and three helicopters but no survivor or body was sighted. It's unlikely they were washed up on islands as the closest shore is 40 miles away," district search and rescue official Kelik Purwanto told AFP.
Purwanto said the accident was the "worst disaster involving migrant boats" to date.
"If we find no survivor, then this is by far the largest loss of life," he added.
National Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso earlier said "it's very likely they have all drowned."
"It's impossible even for a good swimmer with a life vest to swim to shore safely in such extreme conditions. When boats sink like this, the bodies usually surface on the third day," he told AFP.
Bad weather, strong winds and waves of up to five metres (16 feet) hampered rescue efforts on Sunday, with 300 rescuers including navy and police officers deployed to comb the sea for bodies.
One survivor, 17-year-old Afghan student Armaghan Haidar, said he was sleeping when a storm came up and began to rock the boat.
"I felt water touching my feet and woke up. As the boat was going down, people were panicking and shouting and trying to rush out," he told AFP ashore.
"I managed to swim out and hang on to the side of the boat with about 100 others. (There were) about 20 to 30 others with life jackets, but another 100 people were trapped inside," he said.
Survivors were floating in the sea for six hours before fishermen rescued them, survivors and officials said.
The survivors are being kept at a community hall near Prigi beach, 640 kilometres (400 miles) southeast of Indonesia's capital Jakarta, and say they had official UN documentation to prove their refugee status.
Survivors interviewed by AFP and local officials said that most of the passengers came from Afghanistan or Iran, and they had paid agents between $2,500 and $5,000 to seek asylum in Australia.
Others claimed to be Iraqi, Pakistani, Turkish or Saudi nationals, and that their papers were lost at sea.
Haidar, the Afghan student, said he flew from Dubai to Indonesia and boarded a boat in West Java.
"We want to go to Christmas Island and live a better life in Australia," he said. "There is nothing in Afghanistan. There's a lot of terrorism. We couldn't study, go to college, find jobs. There's no future for us there."
Thousands of asylum-seekers head through Southeast Asian countries on their way to Australia every year and many link up with people-smugglers in Indonesia for the dangerous sea voyage.
Christmas Island is a favoured destination for people-smugglers, lying closer to Indonesia than Australia. Nearly 50 would-be migrants are believed to have died in wild seas during a shipwreck there in December 2010.
"Our focus today is on the search and rescue effort and our thoughts today are with the people who died and with the families of those still lost at sea," Australian Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said of Saturday's sinking.
"Whenever people make a dangerous journey and risk their lives, I am concerned," he said, adding that Australia had offered an Orion surveillance aircraft to help the rescue effort.
Australia has failed in its efforts to set up a regional processing centre in neighbouring countries to reduce the flow of asylum-seekers heading to its shores.
The number of boatpeople arriving in Australia ballooned to almost 900 in November, with at least nine ships intercepted in Australian waters so far this month.
Ian Rintoul, coordinator of the Refugee Action Coalition, said any sympathy the Australian government or opposition expressed for those who died at sea would amount to "hypocrisy" until the parties adopted humane policies.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in November said at least nine people were killed when an overloaded vessel capsized in rough seas off Java on the way to Kupang in eastern Indonesia.
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Monday, December 19, 2011
The History of Christmas Island
Source:
(Accessed on 10th January 2012)
The History of Christmas Island:
In 2001, as part of the Howard government’s Pacific Solution, 4000 islands were excised from Australia’s migration zone. This policy was directed at discouraging ‘boat people’ and allowing the Australian government to circumvent its international obligations to those claiming asylum whilst on Australian soil. As part of the Pacific Solution, asylum seekers who arrived by boat were sent to either the excised Christmas Island, or the island nation of Nauru.
In 2007, the Department of Immigration finished construction of an Immigration Reception and Processing Centre on Christmas Island. The centre, which contains approximately 800 beds, cost over $400 million to build and at least $30 million a year to run.
Christmas Island today:
Although the current government has taken steps towards changing this detention policy, most notable by closing the detention centre on Nauru in February 2008, the 4000 islands remain excised and the government has reaffirmed its commitment to using the facilities on Christmas Island to process asylum claims.
In August 2008, Amnesty International Australia's National Director, Claire Mallinson, along with representatives from UNHCR, HREOC and the Ombudsman's office, visited Christmas Island to inspect the finished detention centre and asses the facilities for detaining and processing unauthorised arrivals.
Following this visit, a joint letter to the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Chris Evans, was signed by Amnesty International and nine other organisations expressing concern about "the high security, prison-like character” of the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre. In the letter, the organisations point out that Christmas Island is “an extremely harsh and stark environment to detain people seeking asylum".
It is unclear why the government continues to use the facilities on Christmas Island when there are a range of alternatives on the mainland that provide a much more appropriate environment to accommodate refugee applicants - particularly for children.
Christmas Island detainees are denied their rights:
Amnesty International Australia believes that asylum seekers should not be punished for their mode of arrival. Holding people who arrive by sea on Christmas Island is clearly a punitive measure, not only because of the unwelcoming environment, but also due to the distance from mainland Australia. The remote location of Christmas Island - 2,600 kilometres northwest of Perth - restricts detainees from accessing the same range of legal and health services available to detainees on mainland Australia. Since many of the people held on Christmas Island are survivors of torture and trauma, it is unacceptable that they do not have access to a full range of medical and counselling services.
Moreover, asylum seekers lodging applications from Christmas Island do not have the same rights when applying for refugee status as those on mainland Australia.
For example, on Christmas Island there is no time limit for the processing of refugee claims unlike on the mainland where processing must take place within 90 days of application. Amnesty International Australia believes that all asylum seekers claiming protection should have the same rights, regardless of whether they arrived by plane or boat.
The continuing use of Christmas Island as an offshore detention centre is not consistent with the Australian government’s stated policy of treating all asylum seekers humanely and with dignity. Amnesty International is calling on the current government to reverse the excision of the 4000 islands and close the Christmas Island Immigration Reception and Processing Centre.
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Thursday, December 1, 2011
OSHC Worldcare: PROBLEMS !!
COMMENT:
This kind of 'hospital rejection' of patients only happens in 'some parts' of Third World countries and Least Developing Countries (LDCs), such as, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Angola, and possibly also some parts in India.
But to think that it happens in AUSTRALIA, the so called 'developed country', and is label by United Nations, as among the TOP destination and place to live in! Well, think again!!
Also what's the point of buying 'health insurance' card/policy, and making the CEO wealthy, when at the end of the day, your 'health insurance card/policy' is deem WORTHLESS !!
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Source:
Overseas Sector Cries Foul Over Hospital Admission Policies
BY: JOHN ROSS From: The Australian November 30, 2011 12:00AM
THE wife of an international PhD student gave birth in her car after at least five Melbourne public hospitals refused to admit her for obstetrics services. The incident on Friday night resulted from what overseas students say are discriminatory policies that systematically deny them health services available to Australian citizens.
Rosmizi Rahman, 31, said he delivered his son Aasif in the carpark of the emergency department at Sandringham Hospital after a 22km dash across southeast Melbourne. The Monash University student said he ran red lights with his wife Sharifah Rahim in labour, bypassing three public hospitals that had previously denied services to the couple. He made it to Sandringham, which had agreed to admit Ms Rahim as a discounted private patient, but she gave birth before staff arrived. She and her son are recovering at home.
The incident follows revelations that Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital has banned obstetrics and gynaecology care for international students, including those with medical insurance.
Mr Rahman said he and his wife had initially gone to Dandenong, 5km from his Noble Park home, but were denied care because they did not have Medicare cards. "I said we have (compulsory health) cover, but the staff said we don't take this one."
Mr Rahman said when he followed up with a phone call to Southern Health, which runs Dandenong and Monash hospitals, he was told Ms Rahim would be accepted as a private patient for more than $7000.
He said it was hard to understand why they'd been given different reasons for being turned down as public patients. "When we go personally, they say, 'We are full'. Maybe because we are Asian, they just say 'full'."
Frankston said it could not accept patients from outside its catchment area. Others said they could only take people with Medicare cards.
Shamsul Nizam and his wife Azleena Mohamed, both PhD students at Monash, are expecting their fourth child in April. Mr Nizam said he understood the new admission policy was related to a July change that imposed a waiting period for maternity services for new overseas students.
He said the couple had been in Australia for two years and taken out four-year medical insurance policies. "How can things change halfway (through) the policy and we were not informed?" he said.
Southern Health would not say whether it had a specific policy on international students. It said while its primary role was to serve "eligible public patients" it could also accept privately insured people, but services "may vary depending on overall demand".
Zuzana Quinn, an advocate with Monash Postgraduate Association, said: "At no stage were they told that in the event that there was an emergency or their wives went into labour, they would not be refused service."
Mr Rahman said that out of the many phone calls he had made, one staff member had advised him to "just go to any hospital" in an emergency. "But we don't know what is the consequence of that. Dandenong had refused us before this so we thought it might cause problems."
Mary Pozzobon, national business implementation manager with OSHC Worldcare, said she had been asking the Victorian Health Department for months to clarify admission policies for international students. "There's no clear information on whether overseas students will be accepted and how much services will cost them," she said.
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- Australian Health Management www.ahm.com.au
- BUPA Australia www.overseasstudenthealth.com
- Medibank Private www.medibank.com.au
- OSHC Worldcare www.oshcworldcare.com.au
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Health Services Commissioner: Make A Compliant
Note: Don't expect that a 'big impact' will happen, or that they will solve all your problem. But putting your news or compliant on their report (Health Services Commissioner), will make them aware of the loophole in their health system - and maybe they will do something about it in the future!
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Source:
Health Insurance CEO Total Compensation in 2009
March 16, 2011 by Michael Ricciardelli
Insurance Co. & CEO (2009) Total CEO Compensation
Aetna, Ronald A. Williams: $18,058,162
Coventry, Allen Wise: $17,427,789 (took over from Dale Wolf)
WellPoint, Angela Braly: $13,108,198
United Health, Stephen Helmsley: $8,901,916
Cigna, David Cordoni: $6,593,921 (took over from CEO H. Edward Hanway)
Cigna, H. Edward Hanway: $18,800,000
Humana, Michael McCallister: 6,509,452
Health Net, Jay Gellert: $3,643,342
Note: Latest figures and salaries are not available, but expect to be higher than the previous year.
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