World

For Many Disabled People, a Battle to Stay in Australia or New Zealand


MELBOURNE, Australia – Letting 8-year-old Shaffan Muhammad Ghulam leave Australia would most likely be a death sentence, the boy’s doctors say.

Born to Pakistani parents in Perth, Australia, Shaffan suffers from a rare genetic condition that damages his spinal cord and leaves him paralyzed. Every night, and whenever he was sick, Shaffan used a ventilator to help him breathe. Traveling on a plane, with low air pressure, can interfere with his breathing.

However, since the boy was less than a year old, Shaffan’s parents had struggled to keep the family in Australia, suddenly deeming them ineligible for permanent residency because of his medical treatment Children are seen as a burden on the health care system.

Qasim Butt, Shaffan’s father, said: “This is not in our control. “This is something that is not anyone’s fault.”

Despite its reputation as a world leader in healthcare, Australia, along with neighboring New Zealand, is one of the very few countries that routinely turns away potential migrants because of healthcare needs. their health.

Those seeking long-term visas for either country must undergo rigorous medical examination. People who could cause a significant cost to the taxpayer over a 5-year period – measured at around $45,000 in New Zealand and around $32,000 in Australia – or people with a medical condition considered particularly costly were denied their visa applications. Having private health insurance makes no difference, and being born in either country doesn’t automatically result in citizenship.

Across both countries, more than 1,600 people are affected by these policies each year. People have been turned away from conditions as diverse as autism, obesity, intellectual disability, lupus, and multiple sclerosis. Until last October, New Zealand imposed a comprehensive ban on potential immigrants who have tested positive because of HIV

Ricardo Menéndez March, a Green Party lawmaker in New Zealand who has sought to overturn the policy, said: “Our law by design tells a whole bunch of people that they don’t have the protections and ensure appropriate human rights.

The Australian and New Zealand governments have defended their policies on the grounds of protecting public health, protecting citizens’ access to scarce health resources and helping to limit government spending.

An Australian government representative said in a statement: “The current migration health framework is pragmatic and balances compassion and cost containment.

Most other countries with public health care systems take a different approach. Countries in the European Union have a legal obligation to provide adequate health care to migrants with disabilities. In 2018, Canada overhauled a similar policy after the government noticed that the potential costs only 0.1% of total public health spending. The Australian and New Zealand governments did not respond to questions about the estimated cost savings of their policies.

In Australia, if a family member does not meet the health requirements, all immediate family members will be denied a visa. In New Zealand, everyone except someone without an “acceptable standard of health” can get a residency visa, effectively dividing families in half.

Such is the plight of Allan and Lorigail Alfonzo and their 12-year-old daughter, Arianna, with autism. While the parents, from the Philippines, were granted permanent residency, Arianna was not. So for six years, Mr. Alfonzo lived alone in Auckland, New Zealand, where he worked as a carpet layer, while his wife and daughter remained in the Philippines.

“Our family is being torn apart by this policy, and it is heartbreaking,” Ms. Alfonzo said.

The couple has appealed the government’s decision, hoping Arianna will get an exception. However, the appeals process is difficult: It takes months or even years, costs tens of thousands of dollars in medical and legal fees, and leaves families in limbo. that is their predicament.

In New Zealand, where a series of cases prompted public scrutiny, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern argued the policy was necessary to maintain a fragile public health system.

“When you personalize and talk about individual stories, those stories are hard and very difficult,” Ms. Ardern told Newshub, a New Zealand news agency, in February. However, she said, “We have a global public health system. Once you are here on a long-term visa, you will get that free care, so we need to make sure we can continue to provide that free care to everyone. People. “

Immigrants are also sometimes denied visas due to the potential cost of other types of state-funded care, including special education. Ignacia Vasquez, 19 years old, has an intellectual disability and speaks only a few words but is physically healthy. “She was absolutely adorable,” her mother, Carolina Vasquez, said. “Sometimes people don’t even know she has a problem.”

When Ms Vasquez and her husband immigrated to New Zealand from Chile in 2015, their daughter was denied a visa on the grounds of costs related to her disability and stayed in Chile with her family.

She was finally granted a student visa in 2019, when the deputy immigration minister intervened. But that visa only had an expiration date of a few years, and the family has since struggled to get her to stay, filing a series of reports from medical professionals at their expense.

“You don’t know what will happen the next day, the next week,” says Vasquez, a chef in Christchurch.

In Australia, hundreds of people are exempt from the health requirement each year, sometimes requiring a court appearance. According to the immigration department, between June 2021 and June 2022, 96% of those who applied for an exemption received it, raising questions among human rights groups about the real purpose of the red tape.

But for visa holders who don’t qualify for the health exemption, like Mr Butt and his family, the process is much more complicated, often requiring government intervention.

While Mr Butt and his family waited years for their appeal to be processed, the family was dropped from one three-month temporary visa to the next. Butt, an accountant, could only get odd jobs because of his unstable visa status, he said.

Australia and New Zealand have long sought to exclude migrants with disabilities. New Zealand’s 19th-century immigration policies explicitly banned people with a variety of disabilities, including those who were blind or deaf. And in legislation enacted around the turn of the 20th century, both Australia and New Zealand forbid anyone deemed to have a mental problem, as well as “any person with a contagious disease”.

Hilary Stace, a researcher on the history of people with disabilities, said: “New Zealand is seen as an ideal society, and there is no place for people who would become a burden on the ‘ideal society’, according to the government. white colonial government. based in Wellington, New Zealand.

In December, a cross-party parliamentary committee suggested that New Zealand review acceptable health standards, “And only screen for the most serious health conditions.” The country’s inspector has make similar suggestions. But in March, responding to a petition, the New Zealand government said it would not review the law.

An Australian government spokesperson said the threshold for each person’s health care costs is reviewed every two years. The New Zealand government recently nearly doubled its cost threshold, but it did not adjust the list of medical conditions that lead to visa denials.

Mr Butt had experienced eight precarious years before, and earlier this year he received a phone call summoning him and his youngest daughter to the Perth immigration office. There he learned that a government minister had intervened and that the whole family could stay in Australia permanently.

At home, he and his wife hugged each other and cried tears of relief and gratitude.

Mr Butt said: “Everything was clear before my eyes. “I can start planning for my future.”

news7f

News7F: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button