Australia to ease immigration rules on medical grounds

Australia, 21st May: Australia is all set to introduce new easier requirements for allowing increased number of migrants with disabilities and medical conditions.

The Gillard government will have new Australia immigration rules from 1st July, 2012.

Changed cost threshold for Australian visas—Come 1st July and Australia will have new rules enabling entry of increased number of foreigners with any pre-existing health condition.

As per the changes, Australia will raise the cost threshold to $35,000 from the existing threshold of $21,000.

And this ruling will mean more foreigners with health problems getting eligibility to gain Australian visas.

As of now, any applicant for Australian visa may be rejected if the projected cost of treating any pre-existing health condition is above a significant cost threshold of $21,000.

The increase in cost threshold is meant to reflect present health costs in Australia.

Australia restricted entry of foreigners with increasing health costs--Recent reports indicate that nearly one out of every 10 people on the blacklists of Australia immigration are due to health reasons.

In the year 2010-11, nearly 392 out of 599 foreigners refused Australian visas since they were considered a burden on Australian governments. Australia does not allow foreigners suffering from cancer, epilepsy, mental illness, intellectual disability, HIV or a heart ailment.

As per estimates, all such foreigners were likely to cost Australian governments around $21,000 over the period of five years. And in case of foreigners aged 75 and above, the government was to shell out $21,000 over three years period. So, this could pose an obstacle in the way of Australians in getting emergency and critical care treatments including radiotherapy, blood and plasma products and organ transplants.

However, Australian immigration department-DIAC (Department of Immigration and Citizenship) has decided to lower down restrictions while increasing health expenditure threshold for accepting applications for Australian visas.

Reforms- At last--Changes are in response to longstanding demands for raising the medical cost threshold for foreigners wanting to get Australian visas.

An official spokesperson of Australian immigration department has confirmed the reforms will be put into practice in July this year. Due to lower cost threshold, several mining firms had no option but to make an agreement to cover medical bills of their employees coming to Australia on 457 visas.