Australia’s Aged Visitor Health Check – an unreasonable hurdle?

A CanDoCanGo! reader has contacted us about a new bureaucratic requirement that threatens a planned trip to Australia by her and her elderly mother:

I am in the process of taking my mother – who is in her late nineties – to Australia to visit family, a visit which she completed successfully in 2004 and 2006. In 2004 we used the airport’s electric cart to be ferried from one gate to another and then in 2006, having bought a wheelchair, we used the assisted wheelchair service. This year we have been to Madeira for two weeks and the USA for three. We have a joint worldwide SAGA travel insurance policy.

My e-visa for a three-week trip to Australia due to start at the end of this month came back granted within 48 hours. My mother’s, with substantially the same responses to the questions, did not. On tracking the progress of the visa application on line we were advised that an Aged Visitor Health check would be required.

I completed the paperwork electronically, selecting the Manchester-based immigration office. It was clear from the documents received that the questions were all about travelling independently and therefore inappropriate for the actual circumstance where I support my mother. There was nowhere for me to indicate that wheelchair assistance would be used or that the travel plan included an 18-hour rest in Singapore, or to advise that we had insurance so my mother would not get stuck in Australia if ill but would be repatriated home.

Owing to the shortage of time, I had to accept an 8.40am appointment for today. The offices had no disability adjustments that I could see. We walked in up the steps, reported to the desk, walked up a long flight of stairs with one banister and then a half-flight. This finally got us into the doctor’s office. (The receptionist had asked whether I wanted the doctor to come down, but I had felt this might mean that my mother would be written off immediately.)

The doctor introduced himself, asked mental state questions such as “What day is it?” and “What month is is it?” My mother replied, “All days are the same to me,” and gave the month as October. She got her birthday right. She did not know the name of the airport she is flying from (she has only been up North since Dec 2010 and does not make the travel arrangements herself). He asked her who she was going to visit and she gave the wrong daughter’s name.

He took her photo, which required her to stand with a blank wall behind her. At this point I think he checked the full range of her shoulder movements. The he asked her to sit down near his desk and he took her pulse and blood pressure, which are usually well within normal. He asked if she received the disability care allowance. She receives the lower level. He asked what care she had etc. (She receives 20 minutes a day for washing and dressing.)

Then she had to get undressed to her underwear for a medical examination on a high bed which did not go up or down. I found a moveable step to help her get up. He was able to raise the head end as she was uncomfortable flat on the bed (she has a kyphosis – widow’s hump). He checked her eyes, ears, lungs and heart, moved her head from side to side (I advised she had spondylitis), shoulders through their full range and her hips, palpated her abdomen etc. Then I was allowed to help her get dressed.

He wanted to see if she could walk unaided. I explained I had not brought her walking frame as when we are out she uses a stick (which she calls her third leg) and she holds my arm.

He advised that he does not make the decision, that he does not know the outcomes for the people referred to him for the aged visitors’ medical and that to remain employed by Australia to do this work he has to do it as it is required. He advised that no blood test or X-ray would be required.

We paid the clinic £120 for the medical and £20 to submit the result electronically.

The one toilet had no rails. The staff were polite and helpful.

In five years’ time I will be 75 years old myself. I find it quite horrendous to think of having to go for a medical which is so intrusive in a totally strange building and place with previously unknown people in order to visit my son in Australia. This medical was brought in in late 2009 and I am staggered that there has not been a huge outcry about it. My mother’s GP and travel agent knew nothing about it, nor did my son or sister in Australia. This new anti-disability and ageist hurdle seems to have slipped in unnoticed.

I would like to know if this type of experience has been discussed in the disability world.

And what can I do if she is refused a visa?

Yours sincerely
[name supplied]

Does anyone have any experience of this? If you can give our reader any advice, please comment below – or use our contact form.