Two years in and the Unthinkable happened!!

[JaseandAnne]

So we are over  two years in and love it here, things annoy me, stamp duty on cars, rego on trailers and boats all just a money making exercise with no real concern for the people, this is backed up by the fact as long as you rego your car it never has to be looked at, no mot so there are massive buckets of badly maintained sh*t driving about but thats another story. The driving is bad, they are idiots. 

Miss family, friends, a decent pub, decent customer service and a decent family friends pub/restaurant thats reasonably priced but they are starting to come.

However, in October 17 the unthinkable happened that you never plan for, my wife who was 39 at the time found a lump, long story short its cancer. We found out the day we moved into our first Aussie bought house ( Bought back in March but was renoing it). Our world has been difficult to say the least, with two children 8 and 3 1/2 but my wife has been amazing and an inspiration. Shes has three operations to remove the cancer and surrounding infected tissue and is now half way through her Chemo. 

Now my thoughts regarding the Health and Government systems here, firstly when something like this happens you need help normally from your family, we have no family here and none in the UK that are able to drop everything and come over, the same with friends. Now I know that family and friends feel terrible about not helping but we decided to move 10,000 miles away so they cant be blamed for not helping. However, our Aussie neighbours from our old rental and our new house have been bloody amazing so have the other parents from the school, I now see what community spirit is and these people are amazing. I still have to go to work everyday and although my boss has been great I cant just drop days at the last minute after all they are running a business not a charity!! 

Now, my wife worked nights shelf stacking at Coles part time and had paid into her Super fund for over a year and had been paying for all the insurances, in fact about two weeks before we discovered it was cancer she was whinging about how much money they take and was going to cancel them, thank god she didnt because we would have lost our house if it wasn't for income protection!! 

We are NOT entitled to anything from Centrelink, nothing!! We are on a 176 SS visa and are not entitled to any income based benefits for the first two years. This is not small print, we knew this, but you always think this wont happen to you so gloss over it, well it does happen and we are proof. 

We also have Health insurance, however, with my wifes Cancer and this is all I can speak for, I'm on the fence with whether its worth having. Sure, she had her own room at a private hospital and private surgeon removed the lump and did the subsequent two other surgeries but she would of been seen equally as quick and may well have had her own room at a public hospital. The health insurance doesnt pay for scans and investigative work and there is a always an excess or gap in some treatments that we are in for to the tune of just over $2000. With the public system you have to pay for some exploratory stuff but no gaps/excess. In fact my wife is now on the public system for chemo because its the same as private with out us having to find the gap money. 

I cannot fault either private or public system here but I think one compliments the other. If you have no health insurance I think you wait for some things, just like the UK and some stuff youll have to pay for.

Would we go home? No, we came for a more outdoor life for us and our children, Ive lost two stone in weight being here, the change of lifestyle and food has certainly helped me. the people are friendlier and generally more inclined to chat about nothing. Myself and my daughter do Karate which was a thing of mine in the UK but I never had the time, shes not long going for her black belt and has the potential to go further. I go to a fitness class at my local park 4 mornings a  week with a great bunch or people. Wouldnt of done that in the UK!! 

So, it may never happen, and I hope you guys never have to go through this, but its worth remembering that life isnt always smooth and what you would do if it all went wrong!! 

[ali]

So sorry to hear about your wifes illness - sending best wishes for her recovery.

[JaseandAnne]

Thanks Ali, tough times but we'll get there

[Jen78]

So sorry to read you’ve gone through this at the start of your new life here, must have been devaststing especially with being so far from home.  Glad you’ve got great neighbours, wishing your wife a speedy and full recovery.  Glad you’re still positive about the lifestyle and everything that life has to offer here.

We wouldn’t be without the private healthcare, I’ve had 4 wisdom teeth out and hubby has had an op.  All seen extremely quickly and most of the fees paid for, and 3 of us have had new glasses.  I know we pay monthly for the cover but it is giving us peace of mind that we’re covered and can be seen quickly if required.

Best wishes to you and your family.

[LouLouSkippy]

Hey.... Sorry to hear this..... We have also been here 2 years... and are still living the dream... My son had his appendix out 2 weeks ago couldn't thought the public hospital system.... Was great. 

Unfortunately my daughter has been diagnosed with sociliosis so we are waiting at operation again on the public hospital system for that....  The only benefit for us if we had had hospital cover on our health insurance would have been my daughter would have seen a specialist a lot quicker and without me having to beg for her to be seen...(bit like the NHS there's ways to get round this) It makes no difference to the waiting list for the op to be private or public... 

[ali]

10 hours ago, LouLouSkippy said:

Hey.... Sorry to hear this..... We have also been here 2 years... and are still living the dream... My son had his appendix out 2 weeks ago couldn't thought the public hospital system.... Was great. 

Unfortunately my daughter has been diagnosed with sociliosis so we are waiting at operation again on the public hospital system for that....  The only benefit for us if we had had hospital cover on our health insurance would have been my daughter would have seen a specialist a lot quicker and without me having to beg for her to be seen...(bit like the NHS there's ways to get round this) It makes no difference to the waiting list for the op to be private or public... 

I think it must depend on who you see re the wait time.  After seeing someone privately, we got to choose when to have surgery - one operation was the week after and my husband is having surgery 6 weeks after his consultation.  Generally, private surgeons tend to be a little quicker as they may have theatre time booked at several hospitals.