When Sydney woman Joyce Lim Chin applied for her mother and father’s parental visa a decade ago, she never imagined she would be left with an $85,000 hospital bill and so much pain.
“The whole family is here in Australia, including my sisters,” Lim Chin said.
“We just wanted my parents to be able to stay here too, so if anything happened we could take care of them.”
Safoorah Ramasawmy died earlier this month, with her parents’ visa still pending. (Provided by: Joyce Lim Chin)
In 2012, Lim Chin and his family paid $6,000 for his parents’ visa applications and hoped to hear back soon, with no idea how long the process would take.
Two years later, in 2014, his parents passed their medicals and were told they had been placed in the visa queue.
The elderly couple, who are from Mauritius, spent the next eight years living in Australia on temporary visas while sitting in the queue.
Earlier this month, Lim Chin’s mother, Safoorah, died at the age of 92.
His visa was never processed.
Lim Chin’s father Sahooda, 85, is still waiting for his visa to be granted.
More than 120,000 people are currently waiting for parent visas to be processed, according to figures released to 9news.com.au by the Department of Home Affairs.
The department estimates that the processing time for parent and elder parent visas is now around 30 years.
The waiting time is second only to the remaining relative visa, which has a processing period of approximately 50 years.
There are many visas with long waiting times, but the relative remaining visa takes longer to process, approximately 50 years. (New: Tara Blancato)
Australia offers another visa option for parents with a shorter waiting time, the Contributory Parent Visa, but it comes with a fee of $50,000 per applicant.
Contributory father visa processing times have also skyrocketed in recent times, now standing at more than five and a half years.
Lim Chin said the contributory visa was not an option for his parents as it was too expensive.
“Even though there are three of us (siblings), we all have financial commitments, we couldn’t afford it,” he said.
Lim Chin said her parents lived independently until a few months ago, when her mother’s dementia worsened and she began receiving palliative care.
Around the same time, her father fell and broke his hip, requiring surgery and a month’s hospitalization.
As temporary visa holders, Lim Chin’s parents have never been eligible for Medicare.
Lim Chin’s family is now left with hospital bills totaling more than $85,000 for the medical care his parents have received over the past few months.
“We just got Dad’s hospital bill – it was $71,000 just for the hospital bed, and then the surgery will go on top of that,” Lim Chin said.
“Mom’s bill is over $15,000.
“It’s been a very sad and stressful time for us.”
Safoorah and Sahooda Ramasawmy applied for elder parent visas in 2012. (Supplied: Joyce Lim Chin)
Lim Chin, who is an accountant, moved to Australia on a specialized visa 27 years ago and is now an Australian citizen, as are her two sisters.
Lim Chin said she understood her elderly parents had not made a direct financial contribution to Australia, as she and her siblings had.
“We paid for everything for our parents and we were happy to do it, they don’t get a pension.
“However, I feel that with the medical situation my parents have been in for the past three months, help should at least have been given.
“No compassion was shown.”
Lim Chin said it was also misleading for the Home Department to offer a visa that came with a decades-long wait.
“It’s ridiculous, they should just tell people not to apply, not to take people’s money,” he said.
The lack of transparency of exactly where his parents sat in the queue was also frustrating, he added.
The Home Office says on its website that it has now processed visa applications from former parents who entered the queue before October 2010.
However, it is not clear when the next intake will be.
Department figures provided to 9news.com.au show there are now more than 73,100 pending applications for Contributory Parent Visas and Contributory Parent Visas.
At the same time, there are 48,000 visa applications for non-contributory parents and aging non-contributory parents pending processing.
Under Australia’s 2021-2022 Migration Program, 4500 parent visas were allocated, both contributory and non-contributory.
The increase in waiting times for family and partner visas was the subject of a Senate inquiry last year.
The inquiry’s final report, published in April this year, recommended that the Home Office develop a “long-term strategy to upgrade its visa processing system” as a “matter of urgency”.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said the new Labor government was looking at how it could tackle long visa processing times, but warned it “cannot happen overnight”.
“We are considering all options to allocate resources to deal with the visa backlog,” he said.
“People reassigned to handle visa applications by hand need to be trained and skilled before they can do this important work.”
Mateja Rautner is a former professor of migration law at the Australian National University and director and principal migration agent at Migration Plus.
Rautner said the decades-long wait for non-contributory parent visas meant applicants’ declining health often became a big issue.
“We’ve seen cases of parents in their 80s and 90s who have had cancer, so then they get a denial,” he said.
“Then we have to appeal the decision and go to the minister asking for mercy.
“Most of them get their visa at the end of the day, they wouldn’t put them on a plane and deport them.
“But the human costs for the applicants and also the cost of the system that manages these cases is enormous. It’s just a waste of resources.
“If we provide that path, then we really have a moral obligation to allow people to properly settle here.”
Contact reporter Emily McPherson at emcpherson@nine.com.au.