Guardian : " Three Yarl's Wood doctors investigated over healthcare failings" - 22/03/10
"General Medical Council hears complaints over poor care at immigration detention centre
Three doctors working at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre are facing investigation by the General Medical Council, amid calls for healthcare at the centre to be transferred from the private sector to the NHS.
The trio have been referred to the GMC after complaints over numerous alleged cases of substandard patient care, the Guardian has learned. The investigation follows a succession of damning reports highlighting inadequate healthcare at the Bedfordshire centre.
The GMC investigation will increase pressure on ministers to address growing concerns about healthcare at Yarl's Wood, which is the responsibility of Serco, the private company that runs the centre. Last month the children's commissioner raised concerns about "significant areas" of care for the 1,000 children held at Yarl's Wood, saying it fell below NHS standards.
On Wednesday the chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, will publish a report into Yarl's Wood, which is also expected to criticise conditions at the centre.
Last night two MPs called for Serco to be stripped of responsibility for healthcare at Yarl's Wood. John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, said: "There is an underlying conflict of interest when you have a private company which is run for profit running healthcare. The best way of ensuring openness, transparency and avoiding conflict of interest, and ensuring that people are getting a fair standard of healthcare, is to have it run by the NHS."
Alistair Burt, Tory MP for North East Bedfordshire, described healthcare as the weak link at the centre which could only be resolved by transferring it to the NHS.
He said: "If there is an issue over fitness to travel and the decision is made by a contracted company inside Yarl's Wood, what chance is there of having confidence that it has not been influenced by the contract given to the contractors to get people out of the country?" A Serco spokesman said: "We understand that complaints have been made to the GMC" regarding healthcare at Yarl's Wood but could not comment further.
The GMC declined to comment, citing its "duty of confidentiality".
The Guardian has obtained more details about the case of a 10-year-old girl – highlighted by the children's commissioner – who tried to kill herself as she was about to be transferred back to Yarl's Wood.
Dave Wood, of the UK Border Agency, argued that "appropriate referrals" were made after any sign of mental illness but in this case it had not been necessary.
But Dr Sarah Wynick, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who examined the girl at Yarl's Wood, told the Guardian that she had been "very disturbed" for three weeks and should have been referred. She tried to kill herself again after her release.
Wynick said: "Although the nursing staff are not well trained in terms of mental illness, you don't have to have much training to recognise gross disturbance.""