THE Department of Immigration has confirmed 19 asylum seekers have been transferred from Papua New Guinea's Manus Island to Australia for medical reasons.
A spokesman for the department said the asylum seekers were transferred to the Inverbrackie detention facility in South Australia on Thursday.
"I can confirm that there was a transfer of 19 people from Manus Island to Inverbrackie," he said.
"The transfer was for medical reasons - most through family groups, although there is one young girl requiring specialist medical treatment."
The spokesman would not confirm how many required treatment, or what they were being treated for, but said their conditions were not infectious.
All had previously arrived in Australian waters by boat and had since been transferred to Manus Island, as part of the federal government's offshore processing regime.
Australian Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the transfer proved the Manus Island processing centre was a "horror show" and needed to be shut down.
"It is not saving lives, it is not stopping boats, in fact it is harming people including refugee children," she told reporters in Canberra.
"It is making them suffer more and it's time to shut it down."
Senator Hanson-Young said one family had been split as part of the medical transfer.
"Is this a new government policy to be splitting families?" she asked.
The Refugee Action Coalition said all those transferred were from a family compound on Manus Island, and included at least six pregnant women and a sick eight-year-old Iraqi girl accompanied by her mother.
"It says everything about the quality of medical care in Manus Island that the women about to have children have had to be brought to the Australian mainland," spokesman Ian Rintoul said in a statement.
"If the family compound cannot look after families then it should be closed."
Federal Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison was due to hold a press conference on the issue in Sydney.
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