Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 9, 2010 Share Posted January 9, 2010 Hi all We started our visa journey back on 25/1/08 with a meeting with our agent to see if we qualified to emigrate to Australia on a 175 skilled independent visa yes was the answer yipeee. I am a 43 year old carpenter living in Edinburgh with my wife 36 and daughter 3, I also have 2 older kids to a previous marriage son 19 and daughter 16 who will not be emigrating with us they are staying here with their mother but my 16 year old daughter had to go on the application. Our journey so far: Had to sit Ielts exam to get extra points but was never any good at english so i sat it 3 times but could not get 7 and above in each section so we changed to a 176 state sponsored visa. We wanted to move to Adelaide as we had been there on holiday and loved it but at that time south Australia did not have carpenters on their demand list, so we applied to wa so we would stay there for 2 years then move to Adelaide. Done Vetassess carpentry passed 17/10/08 Lodged wa 17/11/08 accepted 23/12/08 Lodged main visa same day 23/12/08 Then south Australia put carpenters back on list so Lodged sa 8/1/09 accepted 2/3/09 We got co 24/4/09 who requested meds etc Meds done 11/5/09 PC done 19/5/09 Meds finalised 4/6/09 only myself,wife and 3 year old are shown on diac site Letter from hoc 17/6/09 Problem with 16 year old she has Dyspraxia wich we were told would would not be a problem,so the hoc asked us to send her to see a Neurologist. Seen Neurologist 26/6/09 more money and time More problems hoc now wanted a report from a Developmental Psychologist so this hit at holiday time so took weeks to sort out and hard to find. Seen Developmental Psychologist 26/8/09 more money and time Then 23rd Sept well we all know that one 28/9/09 Major problem daughter has failed medical so we all fail and she is not even coming with us We then have a meeting with our agent lots of tears we have been asked to send an Invitation to comment - Natural Justice to the moc this was done 16/10/09 we are keeping in touch with our agent but all we get is still not heard anything. So we thought if we post this on pio maybe someone may have had dealings with moc on how long things might take. Thanks Stuart 43,Janice36,Stefan19,Kerri16,Olivia3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proview220 Posted January 9, 2010 Share Posted January 9, 2010 Hope it all works out in the end. Proview Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Magnetic6 Posted January 9, 2010 Share Posted January 9, 2010 Hi Stuart There's some brilliant threads on here of people's experiences of migrating with children with disabilities or in your case scenario's of medicals etc. Search Disabilities and loads should come up or look for posts from a member called Taffordbark who had many obstacles put in his way but i think is now living in Australia. Natalie x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 Just to say many thanks to Magnetic6 (Natalie) I have visited the links you suggested and found them very helpfull and all I the info Gill and others give is ammazing. The bit we dont understand is our daughter is not even coming with us Cheers Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest VickyMel Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 Hi Stuart Sorry can't help you myself but I am bumping your thread so that the Monday morning crowd see it. Good luck VickyMel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Lombard Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 Hi Stuart, This might be something we can help with - calling in a neurologist seems a trifle inappropriate from your description - but obviously I can't step on your current agent's toes and all I can suggest is that you try as hard as you can to make sure the evidence is on your side before they make a final decision. Cheers, George Lombard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melbournegirlinny Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 Hi. Sorry to hear about your problems with this. I don't know who your current agent is, but if I were you I'd very urgently speak to George Lombard or someone very experienced like him to seek their guidance. I have no connection at all to Mr Lombard, but with complex legal problems where negative decisions have been made and you face short timelines it usually pays to have more than one expert opinion. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Thank you George Lombard and melbournegirlinny for your replies, our agent is good but we wondered if anybody has encountered this outcome before, with the whole family being refused a visa even though it's my non-migrating child who has not passed her medical. She is nearly 17 and we understand that she is still classed as a dependant child but she has no intention of coming with us. She has a learning difficulty called dyspraxia so the hoc requested a neurologist's report and then a developmental psychologist's report, both of which classed the condition as mild. The moc's report stated that she did not meet the health requirement as they interpreted the reports as her having a "severe condition which would be a significant cost to the Australian community". We were completely shocked at the decision as she has never been on any medication and is fit and well and the psychologist was outraged that her professional opinion had been completly misinterpreted. Any advice would be a great help to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Lombard Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Hi Stuart, You've encountered the "one fails all fail" problem - and they do medicals for non-migrating dependants to stop you first getting your own visas and then bringing the child under a child visa which has a lower medical standard. Your agent should be discussing strategies and options at this stage, this is not an uncommon scenario. Cheers, George Lombard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Hi Stuart The reason why your non-migrating daughter's meds had to be tested and the whole family has failed the meds is as follows: If you go to Australia with Permanent Residency, at any time up until she is 25 you can apply for a Child Visa for your daughter. Child amd Partner visas both carry a Health Waiver, meaning that your daughter's dyspraxia would probably not stand in her way with a Child Visa but it does so with a Skilled Visa because no Health Waiver is available with Skllled Visas. So the above is the reason why this has happened and it is not particularly uncommon. Late in 2008 there was a huge rumpus over the meds for Dr Moeller's son Lukas, who has Down Syndrome quite acutely. The Minister was forced to intervene because Dr Moeller is a doctor of medicine who was in charge of the acute care of patients at a hospital in rural Victoria. Amongst other things, Dr Moeller's case and a spate like them caused the Minister to notice that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been passed and Australia is a signatory to it. The Minister ordered that a joint Senate Committee should be established to sort the medical mess out. That inquiry is here: http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/migration-issues/67292-have-your-say-health-requirement.html The Inquiry Secretary took the trouble to trawl the Internet and noticed that Poms in Oz members have frequently run into strife with the meds, so she asked PiO whether we as a forum or one or more of the members of PiO might like to make submissions to the Inquiry and made it very easy for us to get in touch etc. Finding her thread is much quicker and easier than wading through the Australian Parliament's website each time. So far just over 90 parties have made submissions, many of them very learned even though my own submission is not learned: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/mig/disability/index.htm The Committee also realised that the formal terms of reference would be too complicated for some of us so they came up with a series of simple questions for people to deal with, which also helps. I think you should start with the Submission by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/mig/disability/subs/sub080.pdf They make it plain that persons with disabilities often don't cost much to look after and they are very critical of the notion that only one Medical Officer of the Commonwealth - who often has no training in the medical condition concerned - makes the decision. I think that the Minister will be forced to alter the Law. All except one of the submissions that have been made public so far pour scorn on the secretive way that the MOCs operate and the fact that they can ignore the exact medical evidence that they tell the family to obtain. How old are you, Stuart? How long is it till you turn 45? Did your migration agent advise you about the possibility of doing the whole thing a different way so as to enable you to take advantage of the State Health Waiver? Doctor to fight visa refusal over Down Syndrome son - Topic Powered by Social Strata German doctor wins visa - Topic Powered by Social Strata As you can see, Alan Collett of Go Matilda told me about the State Health Waiver ages ago (I had never heard of it till Alan mentioned it.) If he knew about it way back then, no other Registered Migration Agent has an excuse for failing to explain it all to a client in 2009 because all the States have now signed up for it apart from NSW. Some Aussie employers run a mile when they hear of health problems but others do not. If you search for posts by Taffordbark, his family's visa was almost refused because his son has Aspergers. Taffordbark amd I spent a lot of time on the phone during the two months or so that it took to sort the MOC out. (Taff's agent was completely useless.) Taffordbark's employer in Adelaide had gone to huge lengths to find Taffordbark and - rightly - the employer kept saying, "Hang about. What about me? Surely I have some rights in all of this as well?" He trotted off and involved his Federal MP because he was right - he did have rights and it was wrong of the MOC to try to ignore them. Did your agent make all the points that I have mentioned in this thread to the MOC in October 2009's submission? Was it pointed out that your daughter's own experts' opinions were being contradicted and ignored? What is the point of asking for these Opinions if the individual MOC doctor intends to ignore the word "mild"? What credentiials does the individual GP who is the MOC have with dyspraxia? Did your agent insist on using the Freedom of Information Act in order to get the original medical file - showing which MOC doctor was involved - out of DIAC? If not, why not because the individual doctor's history of training etc can all be traced? I've known one PiO member who ignored all the red tape. He picked up the phone to Dr Paul Douglas and got his wife's meds turned around: Directory.gov.au George Lombard is right. The Agent needs to chuck absolutely everything at defeating the MOC. Melbournegirlinny is also right - sometimes an agent with a lot of experience of the meds going wrong (which George has) can also make all the difference. Cheers Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Hi Gill Firstly, thank you for taking the time to come back to us with such a detailed reply. We told our agent, who's managing director is listed as a visa medical specialist in one of the emigrate magazines, about my daughter's dyspraxia at the first meeting and we were told it would not be a problem (this was in Jan 07). There was no mention and indeed has not been one since about the State Health Waiver option. We also attended an Australian States government seminar where we were told by a DIAC representative that my daughter having dyspraxia would not hinder our application. Having spent 18 months doing all the required paperwork/tests etc we were then hit with the news that our visa could not be granted because my daughter did not meet the health requirement. We had another meeting with our agent and were given 3 options: Apply for a New Zealand visa, stay there for 5 years then enter Australia - not really the path we want to go down or Reapply once my daughter has turned 18 (on 31 January 2011) and do not put her on the application, the problem being that I turn 45 only 9 weeks after this and we are not sure of the timescale issues or Submit an Invitaton to Comment- Natural Justice. Our agent asked us to write down why we thought the decision was wrong and for any additional info which might help. We asked the panel doctor who carried out the original medical to write a supporting letter but his letter was dismissed by the agent as being "too over the top" in his criticism of the moc's decision. We also asked the developmental psychologist to submit a similar letter and we believe that this was included in our agent's submission. We have never seen either letter or indeed the actual submission. We asked for a copy and were told by our agent that he would supply it to us when we got our final decision. We received an email from our agent stating that our case officer was due to reassess our application on 28 October and that it would take 6 -8 weeks to process. Had still not heard anything in December so asked our agent to see if he could find out if there had been any progress to which the reply was that the DIAC were being slow and stroppy. Subsequent emails have indicated that he has had no progress in getting further information out of them. Is it the done thing to try and contact your case officer directly (we were reallocated a new case officer on 28 Sep 09)? Don't want to rock the boat but would like some sign that our case is being looked at! Thanks Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Lombard Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Hi Stuart, The state medical waivers that Gill mentioned are only for employer sponsored visas, not for the state sponsored general skilled migration visas, so not really a surprise that your agent didn't mention them! However I would be very concerned about your agent not giving you a copy of relevant submissions on request, particularly if the agent really is a "visa medical specialist". Probably some misunderstanding there, I would ask for it again. Cheers, George Lombard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melbournegirlinny Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 I would not give up just yet if I were you and so would focus on trying to remedy this problem with the medical rather than going off and applying for a New Zealand visa. I certainly would not be waiting til your daughter turned 18 and running the risk of you not getting your application in before you turn 45. All clients, whether of migration agents or lawyers, are entitled to copies of correspondence sent on their behalf and I would expect that often you should see a final draft ahead of it being sent off (only caveat being that with time differences etc the lawyer or agent may for urgent matters need to send something off before you have seen it). I am a bit surprised your agent has asked you to draft the letter setting out why you think the decision is wrong. I would have thought they'd draft something and send it to you and have your input. But I am a bit confused by your last post as you also mention your agent has made a written submission and included a letter from the psychologist. Is your letter supposed to be included with your agent's submission perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 Yeah george think I will call him tomm and ask again for a copy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 12, 2010 Share Posted January 12, 2010 We agree meldournegirlinny and I think our letter was put along with the submisson but not possitive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted January 13, 2010 Share Posted January 13, 2010 Hi Stuart Right. There is no point in crying over spilt milk - that merely makes it salty for the cat. We told our agent, who's managing director is listed as a visa medical specialist in one of the emigrate magazines, about my daughter's dyspraxia at the first meeting and we were told it would not be a problem (this was in Jan 07). This is a load of rubbish though a lot of agents claim to be experts in lots of things. It is complete twaddle for the most part, though. George Lombard has some genuine credentials with the meds because his wife is a speech pathologist and George has a part time doctor on his team. She can interpret the doctor-to-doctor stuff that nobody else can make head nor tail of and George is a proper lawyer - which most migration agents are not - so George can understand exactly how PIC 4005 works: Profile | George Lombard Consultancy Pty. Ltd. There was no mention and indeed has not been one since about the State Health Waiver option. You do not surprise me. Only the agents who are really good lawyers know enough about Australian Immigration Law to understand properly how the State Health Waiver works etc. From the agents' point of view, if you go wandering off to the wilderness searching for an elusive employer, the chances are that the employer in Oz will instruct a local registered migration agent in Oz to act both for him and for you. With a GSM visa the whole thing remains under the control of the original agent and he can start charging you immediately because he doesn't have to hope that you will find a magic employer who also wants to instruct the original agent concerned. We also attended an Australian States government seminar where we were told by a DIAC representative that my daughter having dyspraxia would not hinder our application. I'll bet that the DIAC person you spoke with is very young. They don't send anyone senior to the migration roadshows organised by the State Govts. Having spent 18 months doing all the required paperwork/tests etc we were then hit with the news that our visa could not be granted because my daughter did not meet the health requirement. What sometimes happens - but not always - is that instead of simply refusing the visa, DIAC use s57 of the Migration Act. Under this they are able to say that the MOC has provided contrary medical evidence and the MOC is not technically employed by DIAC. The MOCs are in the pay of the Health Assessment Service, who happened to win the contract for providing the offshore MOC function to DIAC/the Minister for Immigration. Where DIAC decide to use S57, instead of simply refusing the visa they send a "natural justice" letter instead. In the letter the CO explains that the MOC has found that one of the persons involved in the application does not meet the medical criteria for migration. The CO explains that s/he is bound by law to accept whatever the MOC says. However the CO goes on to explain that if you would like to provide a "natural justice" letter - arguing with the MOC in effect - the CO will pass it on to the MOC via the Health Operations Centre because this does sometimes result in the MOC changing his/her mind, which happened with Taffordbark's son. From what you have said in the thread, you were definitely given a natural justice letter, were you? Have you seen that letter or was the agent merely trying to stave off a blanket refusal which had already happened? This is important because it is very difficult to get DIAC to re-open a file which they have closed. If you do not have the original of the CO's natural justice letter, insist on its immediate production, I would suggest. Apply for a New Zealand visa, stay there for 5 years then enter Australia - not really the path we want to go down Are the meds for migration to NZ any less stringent than for Oz? I don't know. In any case it is not a path that you want to go down so I agree with melbournegirlinny - ignore that idea. Reapply once my daughter has turned 18 (on 31 January 2011) and do not put her on the application, the problem being that I turn 45 only 9 weeks after this and we are not sure of the timescale issues Nonsense. The original refusal will remain on your file so DIAC will know why the first application failed and a child of up to 25 can be the subject of a Child Visa if she is unable to work and has therefore remained dependent on her parents for the most part: Child Visa (Offshore) (Subclass 101) http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/books2.htm Dependence does not mean destitution without the ongoing support of the parents and State Help is not the answer to everything either because the Institute of Fiscal Studies in the UK is listened to by the Aussie Govt. The IFS claims that since May 2009 the Sick has been paying a rate which is below the Poverty Line in the UK, which is plainly not acceptable for the Sick. According to the MOC, your child will become dependent on State Benefits at some stage and these will last for the rest of her life. This is the clause in PIC 4005 which causes so many problems for people like you: 0807398 [2008] MRTA 1051 (25 November 2008) Above is Dr Moeller's case at the MRT. From your point of view the important thing is that it contains a verbatim description of PIC 4005. A "community service" is accepted as being the lifelong Sick from Centrelink one way or another: A - Z index - D Disability Support Pension is not payable for the person's first 10 years in Australia but that doesn't make a huge difference because Special Benefit is payable in the meantime instead after the 2 year new migrant's exclusion period: Special Benefit Someone in Oz may be eligible for a Carers Allowance as well: http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/site_help/c.htm The MOC's conclusions are often drawn only on the assumption that all the Benefits will be payable even though the person does not need specific medication or whatever. When you add up the costs of all the Benefits for the whole of the period your daughter is expected to live for, the total can be an absolutely massive amount. With a Child Visa the MOC - for waiver purposes - must come up with a ball park figure for what the Benefits are likely to cost but this does not have to be gone into with a skilled visa because no waiver is avilable with these. "Significant costs" are defined by the Aussie Govt as being a total cost of $21,000 during the person's (hyopthetical) first 3-5 years in Australia. If you include all possible payments from Centrelink it is easy to exceed the threshold very quickly. Submit an Invitaton to Comment- Natural Justice. Assuming that the CO requested this in the first place, I am surprised that any other options were even considered but if you do not have the CO's Natural Justice letter I would suggest that you demand it, to ensure that such a letter was actually sent. Our agent asked us to write down why we thought the decision was wrong and for any additional info which might help. This is supposed to be the "medical expert" leaving the whole thing to the client without explaining any of what is in this thread, is it? (Some "expert" agent if so.) We asked the panel doctor who carried out the original medical to write a supporting letter but his letter was dismissed by the agent as being "too over the top" in his criticism of the moc's decision. Is your Agent registered with the OMARA? https://www.mara.gov.au/agent/ARSearch.aspx?FolderID=394 OMARA is run by two senior DIAC Officers these days. I doubt that they would say that an Agent deciding what is or is not appropriate from a Panel Doctor will cut the mustard. If the Agent's decision that the Panel Doctor was too scathing about the MOC's report turns out to be the wrong judgement call, you will have a right to complain to the OMARA about the agent's claim to particular medical expertise and his refusal to send the Panel Doctor's letter to DIAC: https://www.mara.gov.au/Consumer-Information/Making-a-complaint-about-a-RMA/default.aspx Your agent likes playing with fire, it seems to me! We also asked the developmental psychologist to submit a similar letter and we believe that this was included in our agent's submission. We have never seen either letter or indeed the actual submission. As the others have said, demand copies of everything immediately and ask the agent whether the FOIA was used in order to get the original medical file out of DIAC. It is not difficult, from that, to find out which MOC doctor is involved. Doctors are as easy to trace in Oz as they are in the UK and from the doctor's identity it is possible to work out whether s/he really knows anything about dyspraxia or not. If the agent is a "medical specialist" he should know this without being told the bleedin' obvious by you and I. If the FOIA was used, insist on a copy of that file as well and please PM me with the doctor's name. Between thee & me we can soon find out what sort of relevant training (if any) the relevant MOC doctor has had. We asked for a copy and were told by our agent that he would supply it to us when we got our final decision. Nonsense. You should have seen the draft before it was sent off (or immediately afterwards if the agent genuinely didn't have time to e-mail the draft to you beforehand.) Insist on it now because you MUST know exactly what has been said. You may want to add the Panel Doctor's letter or you may want to change things in the draft. You are the client and the visa applicant, not the agent. Your say so is what counts, not the agent's. Had still not heard anything in December so asked our agent to see if he could find out if there had been any progress to which the reply was that the DIAC were being slow and stroppy. Subsequent emails have indicated that he has had no progress in getting further information out of them. Nonsense. The DIAC Case Officers and the HOC become as sympathetic as any other human being does when the applicant has reached the very end of a long, rocky road and then right at the very end it turns out that the meds might go wrong. I suspect that what has really happened is that the Minister's Direction of 23rd September 2009 means that no CO is looking at your file for the time being: http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/pdf/faq-priority-processing.pdf This may be a good thing or it may not. The CO is really only a post box once things get to this stage - a post box between the visa applicant and the MOC because the CO is bound by whatever the MOC eventually decides. It does not mean that the HOC and the MOC have not completed their parts and that nobody has gotten round to telling your agent the outcome, unfortunately. Is it the done thing to try and contact your case officer directly (we were reallocated a new case officer on 28 Sep 09)? Don't want to rock the boat but would like some sign that our case is being looked at! Are you sure that a new CO was appointed so fast? Your occupation is not on the CSL and DIAC did not get the green light to start processing the delayed applications until the end of November 2009. That said, in view of the near refusal DIAC may well have decided to get a CO back on to your case straightaway. For one thing it is inhumane to leave the applicant hanging on in your situation and for another if they can mark you down as a Medical Refusal, that creates a nice, tidy situation which gets rid of DIAC's internal auditors and handily it also gets rid of you at the same time. The COs are under orders not to speak with anybody who phones the ASPC unless the CO alone decides to get involved with the call or e-mail. It isn't something which you can control and nor can your agent. One option is to phone the ASPC but the clerks on the desks in the call centre have instructions not to discuss matters medical with the visa applicants: Contact Us - Department of Immigration and Citizenship If you have the CO's name then you could try e-mailing the CO instead, explaining that your agent said 6-8 weeks and so you are wondering why the delay has gone on for so long? Most of the COs are nice people who would respond to you directly very quickly - given the situation - with a copy to your agents. The CO might stand on ceremony because an agent is involved but on the whole their sense of humanity overrides Form 956 in your situation. It is not uncommon for the documents to take forever to reach the HOC in Sydney from the CO in Adelaide because they go by ordinary post and AusPost was on strike for several weeks before Christmas. It is not impossible that the documents either haven't reached the HOC or arrived at the HOC very recently only. Additionally the HOC are completely chaotic and they have been known to lose documents (including all of Taffordbark's stuff) after the additional documents etc have reached the HOC. The COs are under instructions not to chase the HOC (for reasons which elude me completely but these are the COs' instructions.) Health Operations Centre The HOC's phone number, from the UK, is 0061 28 666 5777. They seem to specialise in having their dimmest person answering the public phones but if you perservere you can usually find out what is happening. I think Sydney is about 10 hours ahead of the UK at present but Google will tell you the exact time difference. Cheers Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melbournegirlinny Posted January 13, 2010 Share Posted January 13, 2010 Gill, very thorough and helpful answer as always. I can help with the timezone difference :-) Melbourne/Sydney is 9 hrs ahead of London at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lisamarcus Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Hi there Sorry to hear about your daughters refusal re medical? We are in a similar situation, with one of our children, we obtained a medical report/advice from a doctor in Oz before we went ahead with visa and expense. On our status it is stating that our childs medical has been 'met' and finalised, not sure if this means our childs apllication has been accepted, they havent requested any further documents, not sure if they will????????????????????? Does anyone no if this means we have been sucessful????????????? Lisamarcus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Hi Lisa Why would they say that your daughter has met the health requirement for migration if she has not met it? Methinks you are worrying too much, hun. Cheers Gill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lisamarcus Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Thanks for reply Gill, sometimes I may need that extra re-assurance, we have spent alot of extra money on docs report ect for our daughter and also been constantly wondering whether she would be accepted, was unsure if 'Met' meant that we had met the criteria or they might request further docs ect for her? Someone kindly told me today that there visa agent told them that 'Met' means we have met criteria, which is re-assuring. Unfortunately I am a born worryier but it does have a positive quality to it, 'it makes me very thorough in all I do. Thanks Lisa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r1975 Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Hi Stuart, You've encountered the "one fails all fail" problem - and they do medicals for non-migrating dependants to stop you first getting your own visas and then bringing the child under a child visa which has a lower medical standard. Your agent should be discussing strategies and options at this stage, this is not an uncommon scenario. Cheers, George Lombard hi mate. can i ask what the migration agent you are using is as i am with ** Visas and have medical concerns. any help would be much appreciated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 Hi Gill and George Sorry not been back in touch ,as i said i called my agent the next day 13/1/10 at 10.56 am asked for copy of letters sent to moc. he said he would send that day, but out of the blue 12.06 email from diac sent to agent then forwarded to me saying that our application is been idenified for further processing and asking for the Natural Justice letter.which they sent on 28/9/09. So spoke to agent he sent us a copy of emails sent to diac, yes all sent 16/10/09 so we dont understand what happend. He said he is going to send again, we asked if there is any more info we can add to this he said we could send Statutory Declarations along with it as this might help. cheers stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest degnantitanboy Posted January 18, 2010 Share Posted January 18, 2010 sorry r1975 dont want to start putting out names etc but if you post your problem on pio someone will help cheers stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spottydog Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Gill, very thorough and helpful answer as always. I can help with the timezone difference :-) Melbourne/Sydney is 9 hrs ahead of London at the moment. Sydney is currently 11 hours ahead of the UK (GMT+10 plus an hour for Sydney's daylight saving). 9am Sydney time is 10pm UK time the day before. I definitely can't help with anything else but good luck to the OP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gollywobbler Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Hi Gill and George Sorry not been back in touch ,as i said i called my agent the next day 13/1/10 at 10.56 am asked for copy of letters sent to moc. he said he would send that day, but out of the blue 12.06 email from diac sent to agent then forwarded to me saying that our application is been idenified for further processing and asking for the Natural Justice letter.which they sent on 28/9/09. So spoke to agent he sent us a copy of emails sent to diac, yes all sent 16/10/09 so we dont understand what happend. He said he is going to send again, we asked if there is any more info we can add to this he said we could send Statutory Declarations along with it as this might help. cheers stuart Hi Stuart One of the stupidities with "the system" is that the doctors are in Sydney but the COs are in Adelaide when - as in your case - the applicant has asked for an offshore GSM visa. If an MOC doctor says, "Send me an XYZ report and I am not passing medical judgement on the person at this stage" the drill is that the applicant gets the report and sends it to the Panel Doctor, who sends it direct to Sydney. Things have gone several steps beyond that in your own case. The MOC doctor has sent Form 884 to your CO in Adelaide, saying that your [non migrating daughter] "does not meet" the Health requirement for migration. Form 884 has no purpose other than for the MOC doctors to use it in order to say, "yes" or "no" to the Health requirement. The first thing is to get hold of the original Form 884, signed by the original MOC doctor. I have seen a case where the 457 visa unit sent the applicant a document which was on HOC headed paper but it was not written by the HOC. According to this document, an adult applicant with a melanoma which had been removed on her thigh required "special education." The applicants pointed out that this was nonsense and insisted on production of the original Form 884. Predictably that did not suggest that special adult classes are needed in order to learn how to change a sterile dressing. Why were the clerical staff in the 457 Unit busily embellishing the MOC's words in this way? The most junior person in the 457 Unit - a junior clerk - said that he had embellished the new document "via a clerical oversight" - as he said in an e-mail. His line manager claimed that this junior lackey had not altered the Form 884 when comparison of the two documents clearly showed that someone had added an extra line which was not put in by the MOC doctor. Eventually the applicants sent their dossier to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and to the Australian National Audit Office so that they can work out why DIAC's clerical staff are interfering with documents produced by doctors. What was this 457 clerical visa unit even doing by having possession of HOC headed paper in the first place? I understand that the whole shambles is being properly investigated out in Australia - and quite rightly, too. It is essential to get hold of the original Form 884 in my view. Has your agent done that? If not, I suggest that he gets on with it pronto. Form 424A and the Freedom of Information Act can be used in order to insist on production of the HOC's original file and the Form 884. They may not add anything but without production of them your agent is simply making assumptions about what they say and is taking the word of purely clerical staff about what they say - which is not a professional way to proceed in my view. The MOC doctor has no involvement in what the CO in Adelaide does with the Form 884. In your case the CO has decided to use the "Natural Justice" procedure described by S57 of the Migration Act 1958. The chances are that the CO told your agent to send any additional documents to the CO in Adelaide. Some COs forward the e-mail to Sydney. Others send a new e-mail of their own. Others still print everything and send the printed package to Sydney by ordinary AusPost snail mail. There was a postal strike in Oz for several weeks before Christmas. Even AusPost's Express and Registered mail services were not always getting to their destinations because the relevant AusPost workers were on strike. Some internal mail was late. Other mail has been lost altogether. When (if) the additional iinformation reaches Sydney, it goes into another queue. With Taffordbark, he was becoming restless because he had sent the additional documents by courier two months earlier. His unregistered agent in the UK was singularly hopeless so I waded in to save some time. First I phoned the general HOC number. The switchboard woman there was plainly passing instructions back and forth and she was terminally thick so I gave up on her nonsense and put the phone down on her. I then got the number for DIAC's Medical Director and phoned that. He couldn't be as stupid as the switchboard woman, plainly. I got one of the other MOC doctors. He bleated, "How did you get this number?" I told the twit that I had got the number from the Australian Government Directory on line the way anyone else with a brain and an ounce of common sense would get it. This doctor had no idea what the clerical procedures were or where Taffordbark's additional documents might be. The doctor had the bright idea of transferring me back to the switchboard till I told him that if he did that, I would phone the main doctor's number throughout the UK night - another 6 hours or so - until I got hold of a doctor with a brain cell - who would most likely be female, I reminded this male twit, since I am female as well! So he thought better of Plan A and put me through to a Team Leader at the HOC instead. I got her name, direct phone number and e-mail address in short order so that I could give those to Taffordbark. This HOC woman was completely bewildered. Her records (on the computer) showed only that Taffordbark's son did not meet the meds criteria and that Form 884 to this effect had been sent to the CO some two months earlier. What addtional documents? I told her I didn't know what Taffordbark had sent but I would e-mail Taffordbark immediately with the details of the woman in Sydney and would get him to phone the female Team Leader in Sydney himself. I didn't have a number for Taffordbark because he had been phoning me, so I e-mailed him immediately as promised. He got the e-mail that night (by then it was about midnight in the UK.) He spent 6 hours scanning all the documents ready to e-mail them and then he phoned the Team Leader in Sydney to tell her to look out for his e-mail. This lady Team Leader had spent all day in Sydney looking for the missing documents and had eventually found those - but only because I insisted to her that the documents were in Sydney and where there for a REASON, so why had there been no action from the HOC's staff? The documents had been sent to the CO in Australia on paper, by courier, to save time since the medical experts had put their own thoughts on paper to send them to Taffordbark. The CO was in Adelaide but she was in the RSMS visa unit. She had sent the documents to Sydney by ordinary AusPost. First the documents had taken a month to get from Adelaide to Sydney by AusPost (par for the course with the latter.) Then nobody in Sydney knew why the documents had arrived so they were just gathering dust somewhere in the HOC building - somewhere in the clerical unit downstairs. The doctors are in the same building but they are upstairs somewhere. By the time Taffordbark rang the Team Leader himself, at least she had the missing documents and he was able to explain the S57 procedure to her. By then it was Friday evening in Sydney. She told Taffordbark that she would send the file plus the additional documents upstairs to the MOC doctors on the Monday and it would take about a week for the CO to hear anything further. It took two weeks but eventually Taffordbark phoned me to say that his family's visas had just been granted and then he started a thread on Poms in Oz. It probably takes a few days to get the paper file back from storage and nobody was about to complain about an extra week, plainly. he said we could send Statutory Declarations along with it as this might help. Since your agent is a self-styled migration medical expert - despite possessing no medical qualifications at all - why does he now think that Stat Decs might be useful some three months later? If they were useful they would have been useful from the beginning, wouldn't they? What does your agent think that these belated Stat Decs ought to say, too? He is the expert and he knew about the medical problem from Day One so I'd suggest that he spends the weekend drafting the Stat Decs for your approval, my friend. "You could do Stat Decs" is simply belated, idle, undisciplined, amateurish waffle if you ask me. If it were me, I'd draft one short Stat Dec myself - your agent plainly hasn't thought about what it should say - and I would attach the Panel Doctor's letter to it as an Exhibit. A doctor is too professional to get the hump merely because another doctor says that his/her Opinion is rubbish. The Panel Doctor has examined the patient himself - which makes ALL the difference. The MOC has no impression of the patient beyond what the documents say. No ordinary GP tries to decide over the phone whether your bunions are bad without seeing your bunions himself, does he? The MOCs know (or ought to be told) that this fact is a huge limitation on what they do. Migration agents are the amateurs got up as "professionals" I suspect. Cheers Gill Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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