Meet Garon:
I’ve had UC for 9 years now and only since I moved from Revellex to Humira last year did I fully experience remission for the first time in 9 years. It has been a rather arduous journey to get here. Im 35 years old, well 36 on the 3rd January (tomorrow) and am going strong.
Some More About Garon:
I’m an aspiring film director, hopefully directing my first feature this year.
Been running a prestigious video production company for 15 years.
Live in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Current Ulcerative Colitis Symptoms:
Currently in remission finally. Used to experience a fair amount of bleeding for a a rather prolonged time. Luckily I didnt experience pain.
Garon’s Story:
My question for all you awesome people out there is one that requires advice and particularly from someone who has been through or experienced this as its quite a delicate process and if I say the wrong thing I could get rejected.
So I am looking to immigrate to Australia from South Africa. My wife has been doing this skills visa application for almost 14 months now and taken her literally months of time and cost us R120,000 (roughly $8,300) which is a huge figure here. We both did English tests and passed those and all in all it has been a rather arduous process with the final hurdle being a medical to which I told them I have UC and I’m on Humira and they replied saying that if the medication costs the country more than $49000 AUD in 10 years (roughly $34,000) then they will reject me instantly which also rejects my wife and our whole plan we had set out. This is not great as you can imagine. The calculations put Humira on $100,000 AUD in 10 years (roughly $70,000) and therefore I am told they will just reject us. First off I don’t know why they didn’t request the medical first thing and not last thing but that’s beside the point as right now I have to send them letters from my specialist to indicate otherwise.
So what I have done is I have a letter stating that I am in remission and stable. I have another stating that I will remain on my countries medical aid that covers Ulcerative Colitis as a PMB and I will remain on it while living abroad, coming back to SA to collect my medication yearly and sort out my scripts but an immigration lawyer has told us that this won’t cut it. That either I need to state I wont cost the country more than $49K or nothing I say matters. So this lawyer asked if its possible that other cheaper medication would work and also asked if its possible to get another diagnosis from another doctor indicating I could go onto different cheaper medication and all in all this doesn’t look very good for me as I have been on quite a journey for 9 years to get to this point where I’m finally on medications that work.
Has anyone been through something similar?
Do you know of any support groups in Australia that I could reach out to or someone I could contact that has been through something similar? Whether it be in Aus or elsewhere?
Any and all advice would be much appreciated.
I need to send all documents through in the next 2 weeks.
Thank you
Medication Situation:
So I started on Azapress and it didn’t work then moved to Asacol after a year which I thought was working but didn’t (3-4 years). Changed doctors and got put on Revellex instantly then eventually Humira after my 5 year Revellex trial period. Revellex seemed to be working but wasn’t and only after 5 years could I try another biologic.
Here I am on Humira for almost a year and its working incredibly well!
written by Garon
submitted in the colitis venting area
Im an aspiring film director, hopefully directing my first feature this year.
Been running a prestigious video production company for 15 years.
Live in Johannesburg, South Africa.
