Skilled visa applicant –daughter with Down syndrome

We applied for a 186 visa which is a permanent residence visa and has a pathway with a health waiver. I am an engineering surveyor and my wife has a middle management role in the disability sector and works as a Practice Leader. Our daughter is happily going to school and will be eight years old this year. Our daughter was diagnosed with Down syndrome at birth.

We are currently waiting for a response from the department having submitted our application for a health waiver for a skilled visa over 18 months ago.

The whole process is emotionally draining and Is constantly at the back of our minds and this has affected us in the following ways:

• Our ability to plan for the future - The outcome of the visa application is not guaranteed even though we feel that our case is strong, therefore making decisions such as buying a house or making long term investments is not possible. We are not getting any younger and we feel we are running out of time

• Our ability to plan a family is impacted. We intended to have more children, however we decided to hold off on that pending the outcome of the visa. Again we are not getting any younger and this is something we may not be able to do if we are still in limbo for longer.

• We have always wanted to travel within Australia and around the world but this is difficult because it involves dipping into our savings, we’ve had to make the choice to limit such things in order to save money. We are constantly trying to save our finances to ensure we have something to fall back on in the
  event of an adverse decision

• It is vital to maintain family connections. Our daughter has never met her grandmother and other family who still live overseas and our ability to facilitate visits either way is compromised.

• My current visa allows me to only work in the profession that I applied my visa with. This means I am unable to pursue a different career path. 

These are just a few of the Issues we are facing. We are currently living a decent life but this can change very quickly (negatively or positively) once a decision is made and we can’t bear to imagine the impact a negative decision would have on our lives especially for our daughter.

We feel we are discriminated against because we should all be treated equally and having our child being seen as burden in the very community that we are actively contributing in is very unfortunate.

It’s been very difficult and tedious, all we can do is try to patiently see the process out and hope and pray for a positive outcome