Going round the Bend!!!

[Guest mandy&Jem]

I dared to ask my case officer if they could give me an idea of whether I would receive the outcome of my visa application before the Christmas public holidays! It took three days for this reply to come back……………………So im thinking oooops I bet they have an e.mail back log of 20 thousand e.mails all requesting the same information……..Well at least they replied!.......eventually…….

 

Dear Ms Keight,

 

Thank you for your email. The Health Assessment Service(HAS) will assess your medical reports as quickly as possible. When the medical outcomes have been finalised and cleared, we will be able to proceed with the processing of your student visa application and advise you of the outcome. I can not say when the HAS will finalise their assessment.

 

You should not travel to Australia until you have received notification of

the grant of your student visa. If you decide to arrive in Australia

before the grant of your visa you will need to lodge and pay for a new

student visa application onshore.

 

Yours sincerely………

 

AAARRRGGGHHHHH! :arghh: Sooo!!!!!!……..still none the wiser…………I am now having paranoid delusions !.......................I actually think im important enough for them to now shove my application……………………… at the bottom of the pile………………..(Ha you thought I was going to say somewhere else, didn’t you) …………. cause I have annoyed them………………….Well I had to ask………………didn’t I???

(Men in white coats loading me into the van) :huh:………………… -x-

[calNgary]

Heh Mandy dont worry the men in white coats are pretty nice and they only keep you until the visa is granted!!!!! you then escape to this beautiful country and make all your dreams come true!!! hang on in there ,fingers crossed you jogged there memory and they pull you out of the pile!!

Cal x

[Guest Mrs Braveheart]

Hi Mandy & Jem

 

Maybe you should let the men in white coats take you away for a wee break :twitcy:

 

Seriously hang in there IT WILL COME. Just when you begin to give up hope the magic email arrives. It wont be long before your posting that you have it.

 

Janette

[Life on easy street]

They are saying work in progress be patient:wacko:

 

My skilled sponsored visa application took at lot longer than

The current applications are taking.

[Guest JoanneHattersley]

My mum and dad have waited 9 months JUST for a case officer!

[Guest mandy&Jem]

I know, I Know, im very lucky, Time lines only been a couple months .........................and im moaning.........................Good job im not applying for a permanent visa. lol.............You are all so good and very patient..............im learning fast................will wait at least a week before i e.mail them again...................Only Kidding! .......................I got the jist of this now lol .................

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi Mandy

 

The e-mail you have received is telling you that the Meds for at least one member of the family - probably you - have been referred to the Medical Officer of the Commonwealth for an opinion about whether or ot the medical criteria for temporary migration to Australia are satisfied.

 

The Health Asessment Service (HAS) is a group of Government doctors out in Australia and amongst other things, they provide the MOC service for DIAC when visa meds need an opinion from the MOC.

 

The meds will have been referred to HAS by the LCU in Sydney. Referred Meds take about 10 days to surface at HAS's office, but HAS has no backlog so a doctor will usually be asked to study the file within one working day of being given the papers.

 

At that point the doctor might jump one of two ways. If there is no potentially serious query, s/he might just mark the Meds OK, return them to the LCU and that is that. The ICSE database will be altered to reflect the fact that the MOC is happy and the rest of the visa processing can then proceed as normal.

 

However, if the MOC wants further tests and/or a specialist's report, it gets more long winded. In that event, the MOC issues a memo addressed "to the doctor", setting out what the MOC wants the examining doctor to discover and write back about. The Memo is placed inside an evelope which is sealed in the HAS building, is addressed to "The Doctor" and the HAS send the sealed envelope to the LCU. They in turn may pass it to your CO for posting either to you or to the Panel Doctor or to your Agent if you are using one and have ticked the box to say that it is OK for them to send Meds stuff via the Agent (practice seems to vary from CO to CO about who they send the Meds envelope to.)

 

The reason for this elaborate ritual is medical confidentiality. The only way the CO ever finds out exactly what the MOC wants is if you choose to disclose the info to your CO. They are not under any circs allowed to tamper with the sealed envelope.

 

I am slightly concerned in that the world is going to shut down for a fortnight, effectlvely, at the end of next week. By th time the world is back up to speed, there will only be about 6 weeks to go before your course is due to begin. If they expect anyone to see a specialist and get a report from him back to the MOC in under 4 weeks, someone involved is an optimist.

 

So I think you need to get on top of this FAST, hunny. The place to start is by whacking an URGENT enquiry off to the LCU to find out exactly when the meds were referred (they probably can't tell you why - all that the clerical staff will know is that the Panel Doctor ticked Box B on the relevant Meds.) Make sure they understand that the course is due to begin on 25th Feb and drum it into their heads that shifting H, W & 3 kids halfway round the world, finding somewhere to live etc etc in advance of the course start date is not a two-minute job.

 

I would suggest that this is so urgent that you need to e-mail the LCU on lcu@immi.gov.au plus e-mail them via the on-line enquiry form too. (I think I'm right about the ordinary e-mail addy for the LCU but if it bounces back, try lcu.processing@immi.gov.au ) The on-line enquiry form is here:

 

Local Clearance Unit Health Processing Centre

 

I would suggest that you get on to this as soon as you have read this post, and please let us know how you get on. Get the e-mails off first. Then get hold of the Panel Doctor's surgery and find out whose Meds attracted a tick in Box B and why, I suggest.

 

Best wishes

 

Gill

[Guest mandy&Jem]

Hi Gill, Just read your reply and private message! Thanks for the advice. I was panicking a bit! Will start e.mailing. a.s.a.p and let you know how i get on! I do know that that they have finalised the rest of the families medicals and yes it was little old me. They wouldnt let my med doctor proceed with the application until I had seen a specialist because of my high blood pressure and weight, although he was happy with my medical. I went to see the specialist last week and she wrote me a report which was faxed to the medical doctor who then sent it straight to immi. which they confirmed in the e.mail that i posted! Any way will let you know how i get on!