Shut up and stick to your job, NT chief minister tells 45 paediatricians

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The NT Chief Minister has lashed out at 45 paediatricians she accused of “wasting their time” after they warned her plan to reintroduce spit hoods in youth detention risked child asphyxiation.

In a letter sent last month, the doctors said spit hoods, banned nearly 10 years ago following the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the NT, could lead to death or permanent disability.

Spit hood use had been likened to torture and defined as such by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, it said.

“[It has also] been implicated in prisoner deaths interstate.

“Children in detention in the NT have a high burden of medical comorbidities, including the highest rates of rheumatic heart disease in the world and chronic lung disease, placing them at greater risk of harm.

“Spit hood use will also result in psychological harm amounting to child abuse, which will have significant acute and long-term mental health effects on children who already have very high rates of psychiatric and cognitive disabilities.”

In response, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said: “I have firsthand experience, as a territory mother, of how difficult it is to get your sick child to see a paediatrician or to have regular meetings with one.”

She told the NT Parliament: “My advice to … the 45 paediatricians who wasted their time writing to me is that you should spend more time supporting territory children because that is your job.

“I will do my job, which is to run the NT. They can do their job, which is to look after sick children.

“I have to regularly look mothers in the eye who, like me, cannot get in to see one.”

Last year, when discussing spit hoods, Ms Finocchiaro said they had “changed a lot over time and are now effectively a loose mesh netting”, which had “very minimal impact on the offender”.

In 2017, the royal commission called for a ban on spit hoods following their occasional use at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre based at the Berrimah adult prison.

“One of the detainees said that [the hood] made him feel like an animal to be walked to the medical area with handcuffs, shackles, a spit mask and holding his arms behind his back — in front of everyone. He said it was humiliating,” the commission report said.

AMA NT president Dr John Zorbas said the Chief Minister needed to take the doctors seriously.

“These paediatricians reached out to you with serious concerns they had around the health and wellbeing of territory children,” said Dr Zorbas, an emergency physician.

“They did not cancel clinics to write this letter.”

Tensions between the AMA and the NT Government are high.

This month, doctors accused an NT minister of misrepresenting inquest findings on family violence deaths in the territory.

Coroner Elisabeth Armitage published a 243-page report last year after investigating the deaths of four Aboriginal women.

It highlighted the “horrifying reality” of domestic violence killings in the NT and revealed that her office had also reviewed the deaths of 68 other women.

But in its response, the government said the report “failed dismally to hit the mark”, was “uninspiring” and its 35 recommendations were “somewhat underwhelming”.

Minister for Prevention of Domestic Violence Robyn Cahill criticised Coroner Armitage’s approach, calling the inquest “protracted”, resulting in “lengthy reports delivered in a manner seeming to lack the humility one might expect from an officer of the court”.

“More focused on the reveal rather than the result,” she added.

AMA NT accused her of playing politics, calling the report the “most comprehensive and detailed analysis of the issue that we have”.

Rates of hospitalisation from domestic and family violence are 20 times higher in the NT than the rest of Australia, with almost two-thirds of assaults related to family violence, it said.