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Living in Australia

Before being diagnosed last August, my wife Julie and I had plans to move to Australia in 4/5 years time. Our son obtained Permanent Residency there last April and the idea was to head out there to live at some point. After August and the shock /trauma of everything going with the CML treatment, it was the last thing on my mind.

However, things have settled down and the progress on DASATINIB is going OK. This has meant we are thinking that our original plans may not be impossible after all. There are many issues to consider and I'm trying to gather as much information as possible, but I wondered whether anybody else has looked at emigrating after CML diagnosis.

The added complication is that I'm on the SPIRIT 2 trial

Any help/pointers/suggestions appreciated.       

Many Thanks

DAve M     

I don't honestly know the answer to your question - but I know what happened to my sis-in-law when she and her husband emigrated last year. They fufilled a long held dream to join their two sons and families when they retired.

They used a specialist company to assist them through the two-year process of obtaining visa's and although both healthy, were required to pay around £15K each to enable them to join the Australian National Health scheme as retirees, (with CML, unless you have your own transferable medical insurance, you may have to do this too). You need to take advice on this.

What was not fully explained (or possibly, understood) was that this money merely covered in-patient hospital treatment and not ordinary GP visits or out-patient appointments. They were required to pay in full for any prescriptions. With the price of CML drugs - this could be quite prohibitive.

If one of them did need to go into a Nursing Home, it turned out their home would need to be sold to pay for it (the survivor was expected to move in with the son who sponsored them)........and once their money ran out - he would have to sell HIS own home to pay for it. These rules are much stricter than in the UK - where the survivor does not have to sell up.

You really do need to get everything in writing and fully understand the limitations before you go much further down the line of permanent residency  I'm afraid. There may be other options suitable for you.

Good Luck with the CML - my Ted's a 10 year survivor this year!

Many Thanks Bee.

Really good information and lots to think about.

 

Cheers

By the way - Australia does have a reciprocal Health Agreement with the UK ( as do many other countries outside the EU)  for temporary visitors,  i.e.holidaymakers and the like.............

You can check this out by typing Reciprocal Health Agreements into your web browser