Transcript
REPORTER: Fatemah, would you like to say something to the prime minister of New Zealand?
FATEMAH: Me and the other refugees who are here stretch their hands towards you. We want New Zealand to help us because we really need your help. Please do something before it's too late for us.
She's been diagnosed as being at extremely high risk of having a fatal heart attack if she doesn't get specialist cardiatric care. Australia will let her leave Nauru for treatment but not with her son. The doctor who was looking after Fatemah and a thousand other refugees on Nauru, Nick Martin, says that's just cruel.
"She was adamant, and I can't really blame her, that she would not leave her son behind. He's pretty much all she's got in this world right now. And she was so distressed at the idea of leaving him that she said 'no I can't'. It's a real kind of Sophie's Choice for that mum. I think it's a pretty inhumane thing to do to any mum really to force her to leave her child and she couldn't guarantee his safety when he'd be left on his own. Certainly Nauru is not the kind of place you'd want to leave an unaccompanied teenager who is pretty vulnerable."
A specialist who has looked at Fatemah's case says she's become "more and more distressed in concert with the distress and poor condition of her son, who's become depressed, withdrawn, hostile, and has twice displayed suicidal gestures".
REPORTER: But Fatemah if you were to die suddenly, if you were to die tomorrow, who would look after your son?
FATEMAH: My son says if that happens to you I will commit suicide because I cannot live without you.
Lawyers in Australia acting for refugees have managed to prevent the return to Nauru of some who are taken out of the country for medical treatment. Nick Martin says to counter this possibility the Australian government is using Fatemah's son like a hostage.
"Very cynically they are using this woman, who is in dire need of medical help, they're using her son as a pawn to make sure she does come back to Nauru after her treatment. She doesn't care where she's treated, she wants her son to go with her. So if you could send her to any country, anywhere where the medical facilities are better than Nauru, he should go with her."
The United Nations says Nauru is not an appropriate place for refugees to be resettled but the Australian government is adamant that none of the refugees it detains there and on Manus Island will ever be settled in Australia.