Army veteran - £27k NHS Bill

[Daxx]

Until the next one comes up. And the one after that, and then again. Its not as if this is the first. If the MOD is going to recruit from the third world, perhaps they need to get their act together. It didn't seem to happen when we recruited Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians etc.

Maybe they have and the subject failed to act. Wouldn't be the first time.

 

[par avion]

It's not based on tax or NI contributions...it's on residency. So expats living in the sun are not normally entitled to unrestricted access to the NHS (save the exemption cited above)

I know thats the system but it does seem a little unfair that Mr &Mrs OB Wrinkly have payed tax and NI for 50 years cannot use it, but Mr M'Bongo arrives on Dover beach one sunny morning and becomes entitled for the full range from day 1.

 

[mnairb]

He should self-identify as a Nigerian woman. he'll be let off the debt within hours.

Only if he's flown in from America, presented himself at an NHS A&E and given birth to quins, costing us, the taxpayer, a quarter of a million in treatment charges, not paying it, then bugger!ng off back to Nigeria

 

[mnairb]

Would this be the same "mob" that used o discharge people under PAP10 months before they were entitled to a pension.

You'll forgive me if I'm suspicious about how much they were "told".

Happened to a Seychellois friend of mine in 29 Commando in the mid-1970's. Not only did he have a British wife and kids over here, he had bought his own home, then was given 6 months to leave the country.

 

[Bacongrills]

I doubt many foreign nationals who join the UK military were lying in bed at home 7000 miles away eating their coconut flakes worrying about the defence of Britain . I'd guess their main motivator was that their own military is crap and they want the pay and opportunities of our military.

If that is the case then they are mercenaries and we owe them nothing except their pay.

 

[par avion]

Happened to a Seychellois friend of mine in 29 Commando in the mid-1970's. Not only did he have a British wife and kids over here, he had bought his own home, then was given 6 months to leave the country.

At that time you could appy for a British passport as soon as you married a British citizen. It changed in about 1981 or 83 when they discovered a women in Glasgow who had been married 8 times to gentlemen from Pakistan and thought it was a tad suspicious.

 

[Chef]

At that time you could appy for a British passport as soon as you married a British citizen. It changed in about 1981 or 83 when they discovered a women in Glasgow who had been married 8 times to gentlemen from Pakistan and thought it was a tad suspicious.

I believe it was a well established earner by then. I should imagine some arranged marriages come with financial attachments.

 

[Filthy_contract]

I know thats the system but it does seem a little unfair that Mr &Mrs OB Wrinkly have payed tax and NI for 50 years cannot use it, but Mr M'Bongo arrives on Dover beach one sunny morning and becomes entitled for the full range from day 1.

Except Mr M'Bongo is only entitled to emergency care - the same as any other visitor.

 

[par avion]

Except Mr M'Bongo is only entitled to emergency care - the same as any other visitor.

I don't think Mr M'Bongo is just a vistor. Other names are available, not when arriving in a small inflatable boat in Dover.

 

[Bacongrills]

Well for a start Mr M Bongo is a fraud as they only drink UM Bongo in the Congo.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Well for a start Mr M Bongo is a fraud as they only drink UM Bongo in the Congo.

Good Lord, just how old are you?

 

[BuggerAll]

On principal I think that access to the NHS should not be available to anyone who is not entitled to it.

He would have been entitled if he had regularised him immigration status.

I have some sympathy for him if he was given bad advice by a public official but I find it a little difficult to understand as I think the advice was widely available. I specifically remember the issue of families being overseas was widely discussed in Cyprus when I was there 2005-2007. I cannot imagine where he could possibly have got the idea that it was an automatic process.

I’m also surprised that the Fijian community has not been more proactive in stressing the importance of getting this sorted.

On principle I think people should pay to go through the immigration process. There may be a case for saying that their employer should pay for it as part of their compensation package but on the other hand he had a relatively well paid job and could have afforded it if he had decided it was important to him.

 

[theoriginalphantom]

Until the next one comes up. And the one after that, and then again. Its not as if this is the first. If the MOD is going to recruit from the third world, perhaps they need to get their act together. It didn't seem to happen when we recruited Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians etc.

while I was at an ATR part of the initial brief (regardless of the colour and origins of the crow) was to mention that if they were foreign then the act of having signed up didn't give them UK citizenship. Whilst I hardly expect everyone to bother to do anything about it immediately - lets face it they were in the first few days of training - or remember it later on it wasn't exactly hidden from any who were still awake.

These days, with easy access to the internet and all it's information it's hardly a difficult thing to find out if you are allowed to stay.

One of the questions asked at a resettlement briefing I attended was along the lines of "are any of you foreign nationals or have dual citizenship?"

 

[Stanchion]

This story doesn't make sense. Access to normal NHS services is not dependent on holding a British passport or paying tax and NI.

You have to demonstrate to the NHS a permanent home address (council tax bill and utilities).

What he said.
The author of the Guardian piece should be reporting why Taitusi Ratucaucau cannot or will not supply evidence of having lived in UK for the last five years, not using it as a campaign to waive fees for immigration status.

 

[BuggerAll]

What he said.
The author of the Guardian piece should be reporting why Taitusi Ratucaucau cannot or will not supply evidence of having lived in UK for the last five years, not using it as a campaign to waive fees for immigration status.

Thats why they are hoping its another Windrush moment. Evil Tory hostility to immigrants denies people their rights. Etc.

What happened to the people affected by the Windrush affair should never have happened. Officials should have realised there was something going wrong.

The human factor is that immigration officials spend their life dealing with people whose default position is to tell lies. It’s not surprising that they were less than sympathetic to people who appeared to be lying. Hopefully a lesson has been learned.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to put an onus on people to demonstrate that they are entitled to use taxpayer funded services.

 

[tommikka]

On principal I think that access to the NHS should not be available to anyone who is not entitled to it.

He would have been entitled if he had regularised him immigration status.

.....

This is something that is unclear about the article .....

You do not need to be British or have a particular immigration status.
He has been living in the UK since at least 2011
His operation was apparently ‘unexpected’, if that classified as an emergency then it’s free.

The oddity is that his passport has been withdrawn and given ‘illegal immigrant’ status.
He has been working, so if he’s an illegal immigrant then surely he can no longer be working.
Is there action under way to deport him (and others in the same situation)?

Has he possibly been wrongly recorded by the hospital?

(PS -not questions to you Buggerall, just rhetorical

 

[BuggerAll]

This is something that is unclear about the article .....

You do not need to be British or have a particular immigration status.
He has been living in the UK since at least 2011
His operation was apparently ‘unexpected’, if that classified as an emergency then it’s free.

The oddity is that his passport has been withdrawn and given ‘illegal immigrant’ status.
He has been working, so if he’s an illegal immigrant then surely he can no longer be working.
Is there action under way to deport him (and others in the same situation)?

Has he possibly been wrongly recorded by the hospital?

(PS -not questions to you Buggerall, just rhetorical

Which is why the Guardian is hoping this is another Windrush scandal to beat the evil Tories with.

Its certainly odd. One would have thought his service would have entitled him to British Citizenship. Unless there something else or his admin is just crap.

 

[Filthy_contract]

He may be entitled to apply for British Citizenship...the present infinitive verb in this statement being key to this issue.

 

[Sammer]

Nationalisation, regulating immigration status, applying for a Brit passport, etc, etc were mentioned to me before I signed on, within moments of having signed, at recruit training, during annual appraisals, almost whenever I went on a course at a different unit, on promotion, on promotion courses, on posting. It was also some time ago now, so I can’t remember the details, but I don’t remember being left without details of ‘how-to’ ever.