Dr. Stevens and Partners
East Oxford Health Centre
23 Between Towns Road
Oxford
OX4 3FQ

Dear All

I/We are writing to you because we believe you are, or may be, interested in supporting the setting up of a branch of Medical Justice in Oxford.

Medical Justice -a network of asylum detainees, doctors, lawyers, other experts and supporters - exists to offer support for people who are detained in Campsfield immigration removal centre near Oxford and elsewhere.

Medical Justice has achieved a lot in a short time (see www.medicaljustice.org.uk and below), but it needs to do more.

The current aims of Medical Justice are:
General:
* Transfer of responsibility for medical care of detainees from Home Office to NHS
* Effective implementation of Operation Enforcement Manual policies that vulnerable individuals should not "ordinarily" be detained (torture survivors, psychiatrically disturbed people, children, etc.)
* An end to obstruction to medical care by doctor of detainees' choice
Specific medical
* Detainees to be screened and treated (voluntarily, but as of right) for infectious diseases: TB, HIV
* Revision of detention centre medical guidelines for:
- malaria prophylaxis for returnees
- re-feeding of hunger strikers

Many of those detained have been through traumatic experiences before arriving in the UK. The experience of indefinite detention, and what in some cases amounts to neglect and / or abuse, at the hands of the detention authorities, may induce or trigger mental illness. This has been argued by Oxford psychiatrist Mina Fazel (Mina Fazel and Derrick Silove (2006) 'Detention of Refugees', British Medical Journal (332:251-252, 4 February) and other medical professionals.

The British Medical Association has increasingly expressed concern over aspects of immigration detention policy in the UK, as of course have organisations such as Amnesty International ( Seeking Asylum Is Not a Crime: Detention of People Who Have Sought Asylum, 2005) and local trade union and local authority bodies.

The purpose of this letter is to invite you to ;

First meeting to set up an Oxford Medical Justice group
Saturday 13th January 2007 - 9.00am to 11.45am
Friends Meeting House
St Giles
Oxford

9.00 - 9.15 Welcome + Introductions

9.15 - 9.30 Overview of immigration detention in UK
Who gets detained, why, how, the profit-making industry (including healthcare providers) etc

9.30 - 9.45 Overview of conditions of detention

9.45 - 10.15 Overview of medical issues in detention

10.15 - 10.30 What Medical Justice does to challenge medical neglect

10.30 - 10.40 Break

10.40 - 10.50 How Medical Justice is organised
Including how an MJ entity in Oxford is needed and how it can plug into the national MJ network

10.50 - 11.00 Why Medical Justice need a "branch" in Oxford

11.00 - 11.45 Setting Up Medical Justice Oxford
What can we realistically commit to, structures to suit, schedule further meetings / training etc

Medical Justice needs the help of doctors, nurses, midwives, mental health nurses and social workers working with children, solicitors, barristers and qualified immigration case-workers, and Visitors and case co-ordinators

Please consider putting a bit of your time into this initiative. Let us know if you can come. If you can't come on 13th January but would like to be involved, please let us know.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Helen Groom
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What Medical Justice has achieved
With no funding other than members' generous donations, and no paid staff, Medical Justice has achieved a lot in just over 12 months existence:

* Handled about 200 cases - most were released, relatively few removals or deportations.
* Conducted about 100 medical visits into immigration detention centres
* Written about 80 MLRs, professional statements and letters
* Literature includes "Know Your Medical Rights" leaflet for detainees and more on our website
* Successfully lobbied for HM Inspector of Prisons (HMIP) Inquiry into healthcare at Yarl's Wood
* HMIP inquiry findings touched on all of MJ's 3 main objectives ...
- Transfer detention centre healthcare responsibility from private companies to the NHS
- Enforcement of Home Office's own policies to not normally detain the particularly vulnerable
- An end to obstruction to appropriate healthcare
* MJ Submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR)
* Home Office adoption of fluid and food refusal guidelines
* Home Office adoption of protocol for access to independent doctors
* "Audit" of detention estate with ex-detainee to check info available to detainees
* "Audit" of handcuffing for hospital visits
* Influenced registration of detention centre healthcare providers with the Healthcare Commission
* MJ articles in BMJ
* Media coverage includes - Channel 4 News, Radio 4, the Independent, FT, Times, and Guardian.
* Over 200 MJ members

However, we cannot fulfil about 50% of the referrals we are receiving and we do not have the resources for badly needed lobbying and research as well as auditing our existing cases.