My husband and I are considering a move to Melbourne with our 2 young sons. It was me who brought the subject of emigration up a few yrs ago, and me who said at the end of a 4week visit to the place that I thought we should give it a go. My husband has been mad keen since I first mentioned it, I however have got severely cold feet due leaving my very distraught mother. She won't discuss it with me so I'm feeling a lot of guilt. I am also a more realistic person than my hubby , in that I look at the cons as well as the pros. I have grave concerns about upping and leaving the UK but have got to give it a go seeing as I gave a definite "yes" after our trip 18mths ago.

Anyway, I'm digressing hugely. I actually wanted to ask about the medicals that have to be undertaken prior to a visa being issued. I'm a nurse who has a displaced disc in her neck. I take amitriptyline daily for the pain which controls it pretty well unless I'm very tired or stressed. I no longer do nightshift or 12hr shifts because of it. Would this pose a problem?? We don't yet know which route we'll take to get visas, whether I will get a sponsorship or whether my husband could get a transfer thru wk. We have zero savings and a house that I would be reluctant to sell to fund the move because if after, say, a yr we felt that Oz wasn't for us we'd have no home to come back to.

Apologies for posing the question in such a long-winded manner!!

Thanks

Zero savings & I expect not much in the house so do you open the £250,000 box or take what you know . Take what you know.

It really is impossible for anyone to say whether the medical condition will be a problem, usually best to take professional advice in these cases. It is all about the cost, is it an expensive drug? Generally people over estimate how strict the medicals are though so fingers crossed.

If you have zero savings then it sounds like you are going to need to go on an emoployer sponsored visa so you are working straight away, although it shouldn't take you very long to get sorted anyway. The thing is, I would probably want to get PR up front with the medical condition, otherwise you could get a temporary visa and then be worrying about it all the time until you have the permanent one.

Good luck.

I have a history of disc injury caused by work as a nurse and had surgery. I disclosed it in the medicals for immigration of course and it wasn't a problem. I have worked ever since the surgery (years ago) and have not needed ongoing treatment or medication. I guess it would be more of an issue if work attendance was patchy because of it or if expensive drugs were needed in the long term. Disc problems are quite common as you know, so I suppose what I am saying, in a long winded way also is that it depends on the level of disability.