# Need help immediately. Lost a silver fern visa because...



## Paintitpretty

My Fiancé (Matt) applied for a Silver Vern Visa in April and got one. He had to do his medical and skills assessment first. His skills assessment was fine, but we live in a place where seeing a doctor takes a while. Anyway, to make a long story short, he missed the deadline to submit his medical and had to give up his visa. He is absolutely devastated and doesn't know what to do with himself because moving to New Zealand was his (our) dream for so long. 

Is there ANYTHING we can do to obtain another visa? He plans to sit in front of the computer hoping that more visas will go back in the system so he can reapply for any that has been given up. He is very skilled (software engineer/computer programmer) What hope do we have? We are so upset by this. Please, any advise will help.

Thanks.


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## shammy

Have you checked if you have enough points to apply under the skilled migrant category? There is a points estimator on the immigration NZ website if not. IT skills should boost his points up, I think. Hope you find a solution.


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## Paintitpretty

shammy said:


> Have you checked if you have enough points to apply under the skilled migrant category? There is a points estimator on the immigration NZ website if not. IT skills should boost his points up, I think. Hope you find a solution.


Yeah, I checked to see if I had enough points, and unfortunately, I don't. We would pay (and do) just about anything to get that visa again.


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## escapedtonz

Paintitpretty said:


> My Fiancé (Matt) applied for a Silver Vern Visa in April and got one. He had to do his medical and skills assessment first. His skills assessment was fine, but we live in a place where seeing a doctor takes a while. Anyway, to make a long story short, he missed the deadline to submit his medical and had to give up his visa. He is absolutely devastated and doesn't know what to do with himself because moving to New Zealand was his (our) dream for so long.
> 
> Is there ANYTHING we can do to obtain another visa? He plans to sit in front of the computer hoping that more visas will go back in the system so he can reapply for any that has been given up. He is very skilled (software engineer/computer programmer) What hope do we have? We are so upset by this. Please, any advise will help.
> 
> Thanks.


Sorry to hear your bad news, but in all honesty you haven't really got much hope.
Medicals for Immigration purposes can ONLY be carried out by a medical professional that is authorised to do so by Immigration NZ. There are many dotted about each country. There is a list that can be viewed from the Immigration NZ website. You can't just visit your own GP.
All you have to do is ring up and book in (at your cost, which isn't cheap). Since you will be paying for this service and with these medical professionals knowing the visa deadlines, appointments are usually in the very near future.

I'm not 100% sure what happens to the SFV's that don't get awarded in a particular years quota, but I've not seen or heard of Immigration re-offering these back into the public eye.
I'd say they don't do this as in my opinion it isn't a fair process unless they advertise the fact on their website long before the portal opened again.

I'd assume the SFV portal isn't going to re-open this year, however there's also the issue that your partner having secured one previously (even though he missed a deadline), may not be eligible again !

Maybe concentrate on another way of getting to NZ - Working Holiday Visa, Temporary Work Visa after securing employment in NZ.


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## Liam(at)Large

escapedtonz said:


> Sorry to hear your bad news, but in all honesty you haven't really got much hope.
> Medicals for Immigration purposes can ONLY be carried out by a medical professional that is authorised to do so by Immigration NZ. There are many dotted about each country. There is a list that can be viewed from the Immigration NZ website. You can't just visit your own GP.
> All you have to do is ring up and book in (at your cost, which isn't cheap). Since you will be paying for this service and with these medical professionals knowing the visa deadlines, appointments are usually in the very near future.


The above is completely wrong. In North America for INZ you do not require a panel doctor to do your medical exam, any GP/family doctor can do it for you and in Canada most don't charge much more than a nominal fee (I paid $25) on top of a regular exam. You do have to pay $50 for the chest x-ray and report.


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## topcat83

Liam(at)Large said:


> The above is completely wrong. In North America for INZ you do not require a panel doctor to do your medical exam, any GP/family doctor can do it for you and in Canada most don't charge much more than a nominal fee (I paid $25) on top of a regular exam. You do have to pay $50 for the chest x-ray and report.


You may be right for North America and Canada - but I suggest that for India (and certainly when we got ours done in the UK) then you _had_ to get it done by one of the doctors on INZ's list. 
So completely wrong? Hmmmm.... 

However, the above point does highlight the thing that _everyone_ reading this website should take into account - _everything_ on here should be checked out independently. All information and advice (moderators or otherwise) is given by non-professionals who've 'been there, done that, got the t-shirt'. 
Moderators don't get paid for keeping an eye on things in here or for the time they put in searching for answers to queries. We do it because we know how useful it was to us to have somewhere to go for a friendly chat, and when we needed some advice on a specific thing.


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## Paintitpretty

Liam(at)Large said:


> The above is completely wrong. In North America for INZ you do not require a panel doctor to do your medical exam, any GP/family doctor can do it for you and in Canada most don't charge much more than a nominal fee (I paid $25) on top of a regular exam. You do have to pay $50 for the chest x-ray and report.


Thank you for your reply, 'escapedtonz'. 

You are correct, Liam; North American residents do not require a panel doctor. Matt tried to get an extension, but they wouldn't give him one because 'Canadians have free health care and there is no excuse', however, we live on a small island, finding someone to do his medical exam took a while. 

It says on the immigration website that the visas that are not spoken for (given up or rejected) will be put back in the system, but nobody knows when, so it's a matter of luck.

We will get to New Zealand...even if it takes us five years, we would just like it to be sooner (much sooner), than later.


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## Liam(at)Large

topcat83 said:


> You may be right for North America and Canada - but I suggest that for India (and certainly when we got ours done in the UK) then you _had_ to get it done by one of the doctors on INZ's list.
> So completely wrong? Hmmmm....


OP is from Canada, not India or the UK, so yes it's completely wrong.


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## topcat83

Liam(at)Large said:


> OP is from Canada, not India or the UK, so yes it's completely wrong.


Apologies, you are right - he is. But my statement stands - EscapedtoNZ's statement is not _completely_ wrong. Maybe slightly wrong where Canada is concerned. 

I personally think that the majority of people on this forum really appreciate the amount of time and effort that he puts in to trying to answer people's immigration questions. There is an awful lot of investigation that goes into it, and as can be seen from your post, not everyone appreciates it. 

And posts can sometimes come over as very abrupt (or even rude). I'd recommend to everyone (including myself!) that they consider the interpretation of the language of their posts before they send them....


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## escapedtonz

Liam(at)Large said:


> The above is completely wrong. In North America for INZ you do not require a panel doctor to do your medical exam, any GP/family doctor can do it for you and in Canada most don't charge much more than a nominal fee (I paid $25) on top of a regular exam. You do have to pay $50 for the chest x-ray and report.


OK Liam(at)Large....maybe I was just missing your unreserved criticism and wit so decided to go down the completely wrong route again with an OP from a country you hold dear to your heart :tongue1:

So let's pick through the statement you feel is completely wrong...

Part of my statement "Sorry to hear your bad news, but in all honesty you haven't really got much hope".
Deadline missed to get the medical back to Immigration. No chance of extending the deadline as Immigration feel the time period allowed for all applicants to SFV is sufficient, therefore no chance of progressing the SFV application. 
So not completely wrong eh!

Part of my statement "Medicals for Immigration purposes can ONLY be carried out by a medical professional that is authorised to do so from Immigration NZ. There are many dotted around each country. There is a list that can be viewed from the Immigration NZ website. You can't just visit your own GP".
See here :-
Panel Doctors
Put your country of origin in the search box - so in this case Canada and as you can see it comes up with the following info.....

Approved Panel Physicians
Country: Canada 
Address: Canadians can use any local Canadian Doctor.

Because.....

Any local Canadian doctor is approved to carry out medicals for Immigration NZ!

So seems I'm not completely wrong there. Just my final sentence "You can't just visit your own GP", in this case is incorrect.

For the majority of people wishing to come to NZ, they will have to see an authorised medical professional and not just their local doctor.

Personally I don't take much notice what a forum member sets as their country of origin as many of them are wrong and I don't search through their historic posts to glean any important info from those posts before I reply.
I go off facts in the thread and if the OP had mentioned they were from Canada I would have posted the info specifically relating to them.
The OP would have corrected me on this matter (being from Canada) given time to read and digest my post, however so good of you to jump into the discussion with your observations.

So long as it helps the OP out in any way we can it's cool :clap2:


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## Paintitpretty

Thanks for your help everyone - your advise/input was helpful.

I called the immigration NZ office last week; there will not be any rejected visa applications put back into the system (no reason was given). Oh well, we will try again in April.


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## escapedtonz

Paintitpretty said:


> Thanks for your help everyone - your advise/input was helpful.
> 
> I called the immigration NZ office last week; there will not be any rejected visa applications put back into the system (no reason was given). Oh well, we will try again in April.


Hi,

I assume you asked the question whether your partner can re-apply for SFV again ?

A person who has been granted SFV previously is not eligible to re-apply. See the statement in the Requirements here :-
http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/work/silverfern/jobsearch.htm

It does beg the question.... what does granted mean ?


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## deanie

Have you considered going to NZ on a working holiday visa? Canadians can apply as long as they are under 35, so you could both apply for this independently. You can't take up a permanent position on this type of visa, but it is a stepping stone. If your partner was offered a skilled job he could then apply for a longer term visa (like work to residence) based on the job offer. 

And as his partner, you could apply for another work visa through the family stream provided you can prove you are in a genuine relationship (which should be easy since at this point with you both living together in NZ). At the very least, with the working holiday scheme you have an opportunity to try out NZ to make sure it is definitely where you both want to be.

I realise this thread hasn't been active for a few months, but hopefully you will get the email notification!

P.S. I'm currently living in Auckland with my partner, and we are both from Newfoundland too!


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## kazemstein

escapedtonz posts are elaborate but not much of hope , most of times. 

doing great job nevertheless!!!


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