stormywhether

Yo.

So here's the deal. Over-zealously optimistic about the time it would take to grant a 475, we went ahead and frontloaded our meds and PCCs early in the process.

It's now looking nigh-on impossible we'll get a visa grant with sufficient time to go validate prior to the anniversary of the meds being carried out.

I have two questions:

1. Are the meds valid for a year after they have been finalised in Oz - or from when you carried them out?

2. If it's from when they were carried out, and we'll need more time to validate once/if the visa is granted, would we be able to resit the meds once the visa has been granted to give us more time to validate - or would we be better to resit the meds now in anticipation of the visa being granted?

I'm loathed to resit meds again prior to the visa grant in case there are complications with our application resulting in us not being accepted. I cannot think of anything that could jeopardise our app (apart from us slagging the system off on these 'ere forums) but I don't want to go and make my wallet puke another £500-odd if it's not a done deal.

Ideas/advice?

Dorothy

You can send an enquiry to your case officer, if you have one, asking whether it would be worth your while to re-do the medicals and police checks now or wait for him/her to request them. Either way, unless your visa is granted relatively quickly your medicals are going to expire. Same with police checks, if you frontloaded them as well.

I don't know why you would slag off the system, though. It was your choice to do medicals so early in the process, not DIAC's.

hereshoping

valid from a year from when you did them. I don't see any other option than to redo them I'm afraid.

You should redo them before the visa is granted, you can't change a validation date once the visa is granted.

Zambia

I agree best case scenario you get your visa and have an after noon to get to Oz as you must arrive now later than 12 months from the meds date

caliburn

Do you know if frontloading of medicals for a 2nd time before the expiry of earlier ones is possible? My current status says 'finalyzed' for me and 'received' for other family members. Its likely that these will expire before I get a visa. Currently, I am visiting a country for week where its quite cheap to do the meds. So, I thought may be I should take this opportunity to frontload for a second time?

stormywhether

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.1; U; en-us) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

That's a really good question - knowing how inept the system is, if your meds have already been deemed 'finalized' then there's no guarantee they'd take new ones into account, I'd say.


Oh and Dorothy, you're on the Yellow Brick Road if you don't think the system is badly flawed! Even some agents advocated frontloading of meds around the time of our application because the anticipated time for 475s to be granted was a max of 7 months.

ladyjane_99

Hi Stormy

We are also the victims of frontloading online application anticipating max 6 months (for onshore application)

Can you please give me an idea of what the consequences of could be -- we are getting very stressed ....

My nephew lodged onshore 885 PR application January 2008, CO assigned September 2008, extra info requested, everything submitted and all documents are noted as being "met" by October 2008 along with Health and PCC (Nov 2007) being marked finalised and met.

Still no visa -- so what will happen to the Medicals now? I mean, how will this affect the visa application, I just do not understand the system.

For instance, if no CO appointed okay -- but if CO appointed and applicant has not left the country since lodgement date -- does this make a difference?

Looking forward to your reply

PamE

Unnecessarily scathing response from Dorothy there, very charming.

The online application system (for 475s anyway) very clearly REQUESTS that you upload your medicals within 28 days. That's why a lot of people on this site are worried and frustrated about this issue, and understandably so - they did what they were asked to do & now the months are flying by with no end in sight. DIAC online visa system is in many ways unacceptably flawed, based on my own personal experience, & judging from posts on this site I'm clearly not the only one who feels this way.

Best wishes for a peaceful christmas to everyone who is waiting!

louie

I think you are being a bit harsh. This is what the DIAC website says about medicals - http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/gener...ity-health.htm.

I didn't apply online but I assume your screen says something like the poster in this thread - http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...to+do+medicals. There is a difference between being "required" (ie at some future point) and "requested" (ie get them now).

It could be worded better I accept, but Dorothy's advice was good - contact the caseworker and ask them.

PamE

Hello Louie,

I do know the difference between 'required' and 'requested' thanks. Also I think I'm in a better position than you are to know what the system told me when I submitted my own e-application! I was just pointing out that people who front-loaded meds when requested by the system on application have every right to be annoyed and frustrated when 6 or 7 months later they have no word from DIAC. Particularly given the time frames one is given to expect. Without going into personal detail regarding my own application, a formal complaint based largely on this very issue recently resulted very quickly in my being allocated a case officer, so clearly it is deemed a valid point by DIAC, if not by some members of this site.

I've noticed that people are often discouraged from critisising DIAC on this forum, even when they have perfectly valid reasons to be angry about the service they have received from the Department. Some poor people seem to have been waiting 10 months or more with absolutely no contact from DIAC at all, when they have paid their money and timelines are STILL indicating processing times of 7 months. Yet when they come to this forum for advice it's been suggested to them that phoning DIAC at all takes time away from COs working on cases (nonsense!), that making a complaint can further delay your application (how could it?!) and so on...and so they still don't take any action, just come on here more and more frustrated and upset, only for it to be implied that they shouldn't have the audacity to complain at all (poor busy COs!) and they should just wait in line. Could there be...dare I say it...department moles on here?

As for my comment re. Dorothy's comment - just my opinion and of course you're welcome to disagree. After a couple months on this site, I did know that by daring to cross a moderator, I risked being shot down by someone out there, if not Dorothy herself (& I'm sure she will make her feelings known soon enough!)

Once again, best wishes to everyone who is waiting! Me, I think I'll take a rest from all things Aussie over the vacation period. My husband already thinks I've gone mad for even posting a response on this stuff! But I do think it's important that another view on this one is aired - people shouldn't be getting afraid of complaining when they do have a valid reason & they shouldn't be made to doubt their right to have a greivance. Imho, anyway!

Happy Christmas to all!

louie

I understand that it's frustrating waiting for a visa but according to the email issued by DIAC on 15 December, 475 visa timelines are way more than the seven months you refer to above:

GSM / Paper & E-Lodged / Class VF

Subclasses: 475, and 476
E-lodged: 29 December 2007
Paper lodged: 02 January 2008.

We all know that the vast majority of cases will be dealt with in advance of that time, but if you choose to frontload you have to accept that there is a risk attached - as pointed out in the link I posted before.

I don't think that DIAC is beyond reproach. The way that the capital investment issue has been dealt with is pathetic and from what agents have been saying there have been a number of visa applications falling through the cracks lately. And I agree with you that sometimes posters on here seem overly convinced of DIAC's infallibility, but, logically, if DIAC have limited resources, as it appears they do, then when people contact them, it must divert them from whatever it was they were doing before. Now if the reason people are contacting them is valid (such as the OP contacting them as Dorothy suggested) then fair enough, but if the reason is frivolous then I think people should be dissuaded from wasting their time so that they can get on with granting visas - surely what we all want at the end of the day.

stormywhether

Hey louie!

This information is irrelevant and not contextual to the current discussion.

As PamE clearly stated, we're talking about the timelines proposed to people on submission of their applications, not the weekly updates fired off by DIAC.

When we submitted our eVisa application more than 10 months ago the DIAC stated that 475 cases would be resolved within 7 months. That they are now kicking their heels to the extent you mention above (just about anniversary date of submission) shows a tragic disregard for service levels defined to applicants during the crucial phase of submission.

louie

I wasn't aware that DIAC ever told people how long to expect their applications to take (certainly no-one ever told me when I applied!). If you were told seven months then I can understand why you are miffed. Nevertheless, the DIAC website does say not to do medicals until requested (though I expect I'd have done the same as you if you were told seven months).

Have you been in touch with DIAC about what to do now?

Fly Away

It was worse than that Louie, the DIAC said 4-7 months!! We applied for our meds after 3 months as the DIAC guidelines suggested that was possible we would be asked for them at 4 months and then they promptly stopped working on 475s for 3 months due to a technical problem. Then just as they started working on them, they ran out of visas for the year! So all 475s are very much behind the estimated processing times.

We are very lucky in that we got our visa at 8 months - mainly because I queried our status with the DIAC regularly and advised them that we had sold our house ready to go. There are many people on 475s who applied before us and had to wait much longer for their visa.

Stormy, I would give them a call and politely ask if there is a problem with your application as it has been a long time since you got a CO. Hopefully that is all that is required for them to get your application out from behind the radiator and dust it off.

Dorothy

What a lot of people seem to forget - or not realise at all - is that the moderators on this site are regular posters who happen to have been asked by Admin to moderate. We have opinions just like everyone else and are as entitled to make them known as anyone on this forum.

As for my original comment, I don't feel it was harsh to point out to the OP that DIAC had not requested his medicals, but rather he chose to frontload. That was his choice, so there is really no reason to blame someone other than himself. Now, had he been requested by his case officer to do medicals and then they expired prior to a visa grant then he would have every right to by upset.