Hello Emma
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The lawyer said, even if the prognosis is good and Dad gets supported evidence from his drs here and back home that he's in the clear, the panel doctors tend to take a very pessimistic view of 'big' health issues like cancer and often use quite old research to calculate a visa applicants risk of costing medicare lots of money.
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Your lawyer is right, regrettably. However, if your father were nicely on the mend etc. you might win on Appeal if need be, even if the MOC is difficult in the first instance. Please see here:
W04/04931 [2005] MRTA 556 (25 May 2005)
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My parents have private Australian health insurance which is specifically for overseas visitors (they're here every year for up to 6 months at a time) but apparently that makes no difference.
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Again, your lawyer is right.
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But then the lawyer said that failing the medical might have repurcussions for them getting future 6 or even 3 month visas.
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Mmmm. Possibly. I'm inclined to think this is a rather nervy reaction, though. Once your father reaches 70, he wouldn't be able to get a 6 month tourist visa unless his own GP completes a simple form of medical certificate, which is here:
dima_health - Australian High Commission
They can always impose Condition 8503 on a 6 month tourist visa and I'd have thought that that would give DIAC enough comfort, myself.
Australian Immigration Fact Sheet 52c. Imposition of Visa Condition 8503 - "No Further Stay"
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Mum and Dad were thinking that in a year or so, presuming Dad's on the mend, he could start the application process but have the medical first so they don't waste any money on other parts of the application.
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If they intend to apply for a Contributory Aged Parent visa (ie the onshore visa) why would you want to frontload their meds? Wouldn't you be more likely to want to delay the meds for as long as possible in order to give Dad as much time as possible in which to recover, get an encouraging report from his specialists and so on?
Also, DIAC cannot make a decision about whether or not somebody meets the medical criteria for migration unless a visa application has been made. The machinery to consider somebody's medicals, free of charge, without any sort of visa application does not exist. Are you aware that although a Panel Doctor can give you his own best guess, he has no say whatsoever in what the Medical Officer of the Commonwealth eventually decides?
My mother was a few days short of 86 when her Contributory Parent 143 visa (the offshore visa) was granted in September 2006. Mum has lots of the routine ailments associated with great age but her major organs are all in good shape.
However, she does have osteoporosis (brittle bone disease.) Since 1996 she has broken her spine, her hip and her wrist which are the three fractures most commonly associated with this disease. The spinal fracture happened first and it caused irreparable spinal chord damage (the other two fractures healed without any lasting effects.) Because of the spinal chord damage, however, Mum is disabled. She can hobble a few yards on a zimmer frame indoors at home but she is wheelchair-dependent for anything more ambitious than this.
We had the same nightmares as you - would Mum get through the meds? I consulted the POPC (Perth Offshore Parents Centre) since I knew it was going to be an offshore application in our case. The POPC were very helpful. They said that if we wanted to, we could consult a Panel Doctor in advance of doing anything else, on the basis that the Panel Doctor might be likely to be able to offer us some guidance about what the MOC might eventually decide.
I decided that this was worth doing. The Panel Doctor that we went to was really good. Having examined Mum carefully, he concluded that the only thing really wrong with her is that she can barely walk any more. Apart from that, though, there is really nothing significant wrong with her.Which was what I thought as well, but it was reassuring to know that the PD agreed. His encouragement gave us the confidence to risk the £700 or so for the visa application.
The blood tests take about 7-10 days to be returned to the PD, so I reckon he probably sent Mum's meds off at about the same time as I posted the visa application to the POPC. We were then asked to obtain a geriatrician's report. The MOC's main concern was whether Mum is compos mentis and whether or not she was likely to need residential care within the reasonably foreseeable future. In Oz, you cannot be admitted to a State funded Care Home unless a consultant genriatrician decides that the patient needs it. Mum's geriatrician was adamant that she needs no such thing.
So the upshot was that her visa application was submitted in mid November 2005 and by the end of February 2006 we knew that Mum had been given unconditional medical clearance for permanent migration to Oz. Believe me, that really does make the rest of the waiting period very much more bearable!
However I can't really see the point of a similar strategy with your Dad because in his case the more time that passes with his medics happy with his progress, the better. With Mum, the medical situation had already "crystallised" if you like. We were dealing with the consequences of an injury that had occurred nearly 10 years earlier so her condition had had loads of time in which to become totally stable, plus it was an injury not an ongoing illness. The only major risk to Mum's health is another fracture and the surgeons have already told us that if that happens, they think the associated shock would carry her off.
With us, too, Mum happened to be in the UK at the time when we decided to apply. An onshore application for a Contributory Aged Parent visa was not do-able because Condition 8503 had been imposed on the last long stay tourist visa she had held and would clearly be imposed on all subsequent sc 676 visas (long stay tourist visas.) We could not get round that by using a 90-day ETA because at the time Brits of 70 or over were not eligible for 90 day ETAs, though they now are.
In your father's case, I would definitely get him into Oz so as to apply for an onshore Contributory Aged Parent visa if you possibly can, because he would then go onto a Bridging Visa A, which would enable him to remain in Australia until the eventual outcome of the CAP application is known.If there is a medical refusal at first instance, you could produce additional medical evidence and go to the MRT with it. If an appeal to the MRT fails, you could then appeal direct to the Minister for Immi. You could stretch the thing out for some time and Dad would be in Australia throughout instead of languishing in the UK with the whole family worrying yourselves stupid.
BUT - you need to be very, very careful about which tourist visa you choose. Subclass 676 visas - the 6,9 or 12 month stay visa - can and almost certainly will attract Condition 8503 next time around if it has not already been imposed. The reason is because it is mandatory to impose it on the third and all subsequent 676 visas that somebody holds.
Using a 90-day ETA in this situation is completely contrary to Policy and technically it is a breach of the legislation as well, but your lawyer can explain the Ways & Means!
However do bear in mind that unless you succeed in getting Dad into Oz minus Condition 8503, an attempt to launch an onshore CAP application will not be valid and will be chucked out. So you could find that you will be forced to apply for an offshore Contributory Parent 143 visa instead in the same way that we were.
But - and finally - if you are able to make an onshore application and you decide to do so, why apply for a Contributory Aged Parent visa? Why not apply for an ordinary Aged Parent visa instead? I personally think there are pros & cons with that idea but it is the one which 95% of the onshore practitioners would advocate, I reckon.
Best wishes
Gill
