Elderly people coming to Australia will face stricter medical checks before being allowed to visit, to ensure they are well enough to fly home at the end of their visit.

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/...5988%255E911,00.html

Thanks for this information. Do you know yet what these "stricter tests" are likely to involve? At the moment, there is a medical form for the over 70s which their own GP has to complete. It can be downloaded from the AHC London website, and is a much watered-down version of Form 26.

Are they likely to insist that the form for a tourist-medical is completed by a Panel Doctor in future, or something like that, do you think? Obviously, if the workload of the PDs is increased, it is likely to laad to delays for a lot of people, both visitors and prospective migrants, I should think, since most of the PDs in the UK are main-stream family GPs in the NHS who do the Australian meds as a sort of part-time sideline.

I am curious and concerned, since my mother is over 70, and I am sure that I am probably speaking for others as well.

Will be grateful for any other info you can supply.

Thanks

Gill

Hi again

It's OK! We can all breathe again! I have now got to the bottom of this without needing to trouble Alan further. DIMA implemented the change described in the newspaper during the Austumn of 2005 and it is not as bad as I had feared.

Basically, until Mrs Agha's death, DIMA had operated a two-tier system for applicants of 70 or over wishing to visit Australia for tourism. The 70-85 age-group had to get their GP to complete a very simple medical form. Those aged 85 or over had to get their GP to complete a more detailed form. All that DIMA has actually done in response to this case is to scrap the 70-85 form, and to require that the more detailed one is completed for all prospective tourists aged 70 or over. It is still provided by the applicant's own GP, and the cost of getting the GP to complete it is the same as getting him or her to complete the now-scrapped simpler form anyway.

I imagine (though I don't know) that if the applicant's own GP indicates a doubt in his/her mind about whether the applicant will remain fit enough to fly home at the end of the visit, DIMA and/or the applicant could probably insist on a second opinion from a Panel Doctor in the home country, and/or on production of appropriate specialist doctors' reports before a final decision is made. However, I should think that having to do the potential Full Monty with this is very unlikely to affect the vast majority of applicants for tourism visas. Also, it seems to me that if there is sufficient concern to cause medical doubt about whether the applicant is likely to remain fit enough to be able to fly home, surely there is also likely to be doubt about whether he or she is fit enough to be able to make the long flight to Australia in the first place?

I don't think that the situation is likely to be anywhere near as alarming as the newspapers have hinted. Sensationist journalism here, I suspect....

But thanks for flagging this up anyway, Alan, because the AHC website is confusing about this one. It states that a Medical Certificate must be completed for applicants of 70-85, and that a Medical Report must be provided for applicants of 85 or over. This implies two different documents with two different titles. My mother was 85 last Autumn, so it seemed that she needed the second (apparently unpublished) Report form. Having wasted hours trying to find this elusive Medical Report form, I e-mailed First Enquiries and asked them to e-mail a copy of it to me. They confirmed that there is only the one form, which one can download, and explained that they had merely forgotten to alter the website in order to clarify this point.

Cheers

Gill