Reducing the risk for women in detention

During an OPCAT monitoring visit to an immigration detention centre, we identified that the health induction assessment did not routinely offer pregnancy testing.

The health induction assessment must be completed for all people within 72 hours of arrival in detention.

Early pregnancy detection is critical to the provision of appropriate care for women in places of detention.

It allows for early identification, provision of prenatal care and counselling, and helps identify women who may be at risk of pregnancy-related complications.

We had already begun discussions with the centre’s management on addressing this gap when the risks of not identifying pregnancies during the health induction assessment became evident.

A woman who had recently entered detention was urgently taken to hospital due to a potentially life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.

The routine offer of a pregnancy test could have identified she was pregnant earlier and allowed for an appropriate care plan to be put in place.

We recommended Home Affairs and the detention health service provider offer pregnancy testing to all women of childbearing age during their health induction assessment. Home Affairs accepted this recommendation and agreed to implement.

2024