The Department of Immigration (DIMIA) is under fire over concerns about its medical provider, Health Services Australia.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1480103.htm

Hmmm. I agree with the concern expressed in this article, though I reckon that the concern should be aimed at DIMA in the first instance rather than at HSA.

Our family had a comparable situation recently. Mum applied for a CP 143 visa from the UK. The POPC acknowledged the application in the usual way. She then went out to Australia on a 676 tourist visa. As soon as she arrived in Australia, my sister did everything necessary to inform the POPC of Mum's new whereabouts. The meds had been done in the UK, at the suggestion of the POPC, so that Mum would not have to hang about in the UK waiting to be asked to go for the meds.

The MOC then decided that he/she wanted a specialist medical report on Mum, in view of her great age. The stuff from the MOC (aimed at the specialist) specifically asked the specialist to "Comment on the applicant's fitness to make the long journey to Australia by air." So he/she had plainly not been told by the POPC that the applicant had arrived in Australia 7 days before the MOC wrote out the request, having flown there non-stop from London! The POPC had been given cetified copies of documentary evidence (passport pages, air-ticket etc) which proved beyond doubt that this was the case, but the info had plainly not been passed on to the MOC.

The specialist doctor in Australia was a star. He was nothing to do with HSA. We were told to get a GP of Mum's own choice to refer her to a geriatrician, and the GP concerned does not work for HSA, nor does the specialist. In his report to the MOC, the specialist spelt out that Mum was plainly fit enough to make the long journey to Australia by herself and by air, because that is how she had got to Australia about 6 weeks before seeing the specialist.

In our case it was only a minor, trivial detail, not worth worrying about. But it does re-inforce the newspaper's claim that DIMA's thinking is sometimes somewhat short of joined-up, I suspect. They plainly don't tell the MOC everything that it would be handy for the MOC to be apprised of, it seems to me, probably because some of DIMA's clerical officers don't think of doing that which the rest of us might consider to be common-sense!

Cheers, and again, thank you for this most interesting snippet of news.

Gill