helenarthur

Well, being quite elderly, the move and finding your way around the oz system of doctors proved scary. We are on basic UK pension, and find some things are so expensive, and others really cheap. On a 143 visa, the first 2 years you pay full price for all your medications. Flomaxtra (for men) is not subscribed by the health service, and is 50$ per month. After 2 years, we understand you can get a centrelink card which gives you prescriptions at say 5$ each for approved medication. Having a cateract off, i was out of pocket by 2,000$ after a refund of part. You pay at the hospital when you go in a few hundred dollars for day admission (dont get back). You can go on a waiting list i believe, but no one seems to do this, you see a specialist, he charges, then you get part back from medicare. There are 2 types of doctors.....1) bulk bill, and you dont pay to see the doctor 2) private, and you get a refund from medicare of about half his charges when you see the doctor everytime.. It is lovely living at Wynnum bay, Brisbane. The winter is very cold from 4pm, and you need heat on. In the daytime blue skies and you can sit out in the sunshine. Its taken a year to really settle in. Our son and 2 granddaughters are in Brisbane area, and it was all worth the move to be a family again. There are beautiful places in this area, and the Australian people are just great. Oh, we found second hand cars are expensive compared with UK and we wished we had shipped our car. Best of all, you hardly ever get parking charges, and people with boats have dozens of places you can just slip your boat in the water at no charge, park your car free, and enjoy yourself. Loads of dams for keen water skiing. and the river and sea. What do i miss, LIGHT EVENINGS, you never get them here. Bye for now and good luck to you all. Helenarthur

Hi there, my sympathies are with you, we had to go to Maidenhead again, for my husband, wet macular degeneration, and re-approach the hospital for a list of details referring to his treatment, and they said, the hospital, in the letter, it was good, and he would be referred back in 4/6 weeks to see how it was going. The MOC then left it 6 weeks and asked for the re-appraisal. Couldnt believe it as we were back at maidenhead on about 18th May, with another letter, and now we just WAIT. They sent letter 25th May2011 with update from maidenhead. Have sent e mail today to health.operations.centre@immi.gov.au for status, This is Sydney, and they send on to Perth. Would like to hear how you get on. Our original application was Oct 09.:confused: Good Luck, Helenarthur

[Many thanks for that reply. Will look into addresses. Did see a 1 bedroom apartment overlooking wynnum bay at $200.00 per week, so will see how we go; It was very kind of you to reply. We sold our bungalow full price in 2hours if we would move out in 4weeks. So stressful. However our son, who now is married and living in Mansfield , brisbane, had a small end of terrace house in uk he had put on the market, and we moved in and it will now be sold when we go. at 79 i am thinking this is all madness, but he has already bought a lovely apartment at Wynnum with sea views for us. and of course vacant 1st Aug. thanks again. zena and alec QUOTE=vava;1013713]Hi there, We stayed near Cleveland at www.auspitality.com.au Sharon and Neil are superb hosts and charged about $85 per night which included use of their pool. You have all your own private facilities and your own entrance so no disturbance either way. It took us about 20 minutes to get to our daughter`s house in Manly so its not too far away. Somewhere else we considered was Arthurs Retreat in Wishart. They advertise on www.seqrents.com.au Just select "short term/holiday" from the drop down menu, then "all areas" and on the next page, scroll down the list on the left till you get to Wishart and click on "more information". Their names are Kim and Keith Taylor and the address is 33 Mindona Street Wishart 4122. Hope this helps, Val

We are hoping to move to Wynnum Brisbane end april or May and need accomodation/rental until say Aug 5th or thereabout until we move in to property bought. we are retired in our 70s. Anywhere arround that area to say Garden City would be great. Anyone wanting to rent out an annexe or small place?:wideeyed: Our shipment will be put into storage in the meantime.

How did you manage this, we applied in October 2009 from uk to live in Oz where our son lives, we have been told 12-14months before a case officer and then i suppose medical, and then 2 months approx for the go-ahead. Being in our 70s we are very confused with this. (Parent subclass 143 (Contributory Parent - Migrant). Have you any idea how long it is taking at the moment generally? Thanks Helen