Inside Australia's Immigration Detention

Good morning.  I normally write an email to you in the evening.  But today, I am sending you this early edition because I am going back to bed.  I am falling apart.  I found bleeding from the inside of my right ear and have a swollen jaw caused by the worn out filling of one of my left side teeth.  My crankiness must have come from the physical ailment.  I have to add these items to the list of my battlegrounds against IHMS (the health service provider). Yesterday, I received a few letters from IHMS in relation to my long-standing war on glasses.  IHMS and I have been fighting since November last year.  In short, I want new glasses and theyr did not want to give them to me.   The first round of the fight was concerned with an appointment to be seen by the optometrist who visits Villawood only once a month.  I won the first round last month.  But then, IHMS informed me that it would take 6 to 8 weeks for the delivery of...

As you must have noticed, I was really cranky yesterday.  The culmination was at night when a guard came to tell me that she had put a new girl in my room.  Of course, I said 'No'.   The guard asked me whether I wanted to speak to a manager.  I thought I would get the one whom I always speak to first thing in the morning next day rather than speaking to an unfamiliar one at night.  But I changed my mind when I was filling in a complaint form.  So I grabbed the manager of the day.  I told him that I was unhappy and gave him an unhappy stare.  He was mumbling one thing or another but soon agreed to do something in the morning.  Since I am not unreasonable (even though I may not be reasonable), I agreed to put up with a roommate for a night.  But when I came back to my room, the roommate came with her friends and collected her belongings and left.  I could not understand why the supposedly new girl had friends here and a...

Today turned out to be a busy day.  I had a chat with one of my favourite guards on the way back from a brekkie.  I whinged to her that I was not able to get my shoes back from the Property making me impossible to participate in activities as I only had oversized crocs.  Then she told me that she had been asked by the Property to send me to the Property any time of the day.  I thought it was a strange instruction from the Property because they usually specify the time to come.  Anyway, I went to the Property straight away. There, the Property Manager, not an ordinary officer, was waiting for me.  She had trouble to log into the computer system and made me wait a bit.  I told her that since I was not busy today, I could wait but if I were busy, I wouldn't be so patient.  Then she told me that she had asked the compound guard to send me whenever I was relaxing!  Gee.  That's the reason for the strange instruction from the Pr...