For anyone curious about the
medical process, we had ours this week in
Melbourne and this is what to expect:
• On arrival, reception need your medicare vaccination history/serology documents (hard copy),
4x Australian sized passport photos (different advice to the consulate) and your passport. They will then get you to sign a consent form for the health check. Then you sit and wait.
• Then a Nurse (very friendly) will take your blood pressure, a simple eye test (glasses on), height and weight. Then you sit and wait.
• If you and your partner have appointments one after another they can do all of the above together. The Doctor will then call you in individually and do the examination:
1st: He will ask you yes or no questions about your medical/surgical history, lifestyle habits etc.
2nd: He will briefly poke about in your ears, look at your tongue and make you follow his finger until you go cross-eyed.
3rd: He will go through your vaccinations. I highly recommend getting a serology test
as well as getting any of the obvious vaccinations that you won't have, such as this year's flu vaccine. I thought I had all the vaccinations needed but I was actually missing 3!? For example, I was missing an additional dose of polio (I had 2 within recent years and he advised I needed 1 more). For reference, the instructions beforehand said:
Polio- All applicants over one month of age must have a vaccine if they do not have a record of past primary vaccination. |
Hepatitis B – required for all applicants birth through to 59 years old |
Again, Hep B I had on my vax history but again he said it wasn't enough doses.
I didn't have the Varicella vax but assured him I had previously had chicken pox and shingles and he was happy with that.
4th: Undress to your underwear for a physical exam. If you're a woman, he will call in a nurse to supervise. He will poke about your back and stomach and upper thigh/groin area (very respectfully and quickly). You'll do lots of "breath in" ... "and out" in quick succession. Bonus points if you get head spins.
5th: Redress. Doc will hand you some papers for pathology and you leave his office.
• It's time for bloods! Sit and wait outside pathology for another nurse. She'll eventually open the door and not say a word, you'll walk in and sit in silence and eventually be asked to read out your card details to pay $28 for the bloods, so have your debit/credit card on you. You'll sit in silence for a bit longer and she'll draw 2 vials of blood (in silence).
• Back to the doctor's room, if needed, to get those vaccinations that you didn't have. They can also add serology to your blood test for any of those missing vaccinations, it's up to you, but of course if the serology comes back negative you'll have to get that vaccination later.
• Done – pay your fee at the front ($685 each incl. xray + $100ish for the additional vaccination) they'll hand over an envelope for the xray.
• Walk 15 mins down the road to the xray, hand over your envelope, then sit and wait. This part is done in less than 10 minutes, top comes off if you're a woman but they'll give you a cover up. They give you a disk of your scan (bring this with you to the US), and they will also email it to you the next day because who doesn't want to see their bones pop up in the palm of their hand?
Overall experience: 6/10. Nice day out if you like to wait around, be triple vax'd for an eradicated virus and don't fancy wearing clothes for some of it