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As mentioned previously, services UNHCR, health, education, recreation, social, religious are in a separate, fenced off area, 2-4 guarded gates away. Therefore, the presence of assistance is often not felt and this contributes to the feeling of neglect and isolation. Only a limited number of people may go to this area in a day, and only when escorted and signed for by an authorized worker. Agencies' paraprofessionals must also be escorted in order to do their work. Therefore, the only large open space and green area are not fully utilized at all.
Because of the cramped conditions at Argyle, health presents a major problem. In the summer, heat rash is very common, especially among young children because inside the romney huts are very hot and most of the time many of the fans are broken. Cooking smoke from makeshift stoves adds to this heat. As nothing else is available, plastic and blankets are used as fuel though the burning creates toxic fumes. As asylum seekers find that they need to re-cook food and the camp prohibits cooking, they cook inside the huts away from the CAS guards, thereby creating a dangerous fire hazard. (This is a common problem in many of the detention centres.) Most of the young children have conjunctivitis, and coughs are common among everyone. Lack of sanitation also perpetuates many illnesses. visible are skin problems, particularly scabies as there is a lack of space under the sun to dry clothes and bedboards to kill the scabies while the patient is being treated. Mosquitoes also find breeding ground under the boards where detainees sleep as there are no bunks at Argyle.
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Because the camp only allows a few people on the small volleyball court and in dance classes at any one time, most of the camp population have no place for any form of exercise and, result, become more lethargic and depressed. Furthermore, the only form of entertainment available is the TV in a language most detainees do not understand, placed in the corner of the huts, where people crowd around on some families' bedboards to watch.
Like most centres, Argyle has a security problem. People live in fear of the gangsters from whom they have no protection. Especially because their living area lack even curtains to define personal space, detainees and their possessions are even more exposed and vulnerable. Camp management is mostly ineffective and only reshuffles gangs into different huts without solving the security problem.
There was also a report of two asylum seekers formally accusing CAS officers of beating them excessively for breaking camp rules. Officials investigated the allegation but did not disclose their findings.
The hardest thing for asylum seekers is still the uncertainty of their future. They have no source of information. There are no newspapers in the camp, and people say they never receive the magazines that their relatives wrote that they sent. Screening has
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