FY3 in Australia during COVID

I found https://www.theadventuremedic.com/adventures/thinking-of-straying-to-straya-the-definitive-junior-doctors-guide-to-living-and-working-in-australia/ extremely useful when applying so I am not going to duplicate. They provide a lot of detail on the process of applying for AHPRA and visa. I’ve focused on some of the COVID specifics and some more about what needs to be done when leaving the UK and arriving in Aus.

Goes without saying that this is just based on my personal experience and should not be taken as official guidance by any means! Also the process may be different for other parts of Australia- I'll be speaking about Melbourne!

In this post:

1. Applying

2. Paperwork

3. Tying up things in the UK

4. Setting up in Aus

5. Flights

6. Quarantine
   

NB: Before deciding you want to work in Australia, you should be aware that there is a huge amount of very confusing paperwork to get through and a big upfront cost…..

Costs

Here's a breakdown of what I paid:

EPIC £164

AMC £271

Notarising £70

ACRO police check £55

Fit to work check £97

AHPRA Application £442

Visa app £174

Visa medical £355

Health insurance £54

One way travel cover £35

PCR test £50

Flight £1435 (more expensive atm due to COVID and caps etc)

My hospital paid for quarantine, but if yours don’t then this could be an addition £1500

TOTAL £3202

1. Applying for a job

Before applying, get your CV in a good state and draft up a template cover letter that you can then customise to each job application. Send to colleagues and friends for feedback. Think about who your references might be (usually require 3) and check they are happy to be contacted regarding your applications.

You’ll be looking to apply for RMO (FY2 level) or PHO (core trainee level) jobs. The Australian medical year starts in February and they tend to have an intake in August for international docs.

There is no hard and fast way getting a job. I simply looked for all the hospitals in Melbourne and found their dedicated recruitment portals. You can set a login so that you get notified when vacancies appear. Some are jobs are listed as early as January for August, while others as late as May.

As well as applying via the portals, you’ll be able to find contact details for the relevant staff at the hospitals by looking at the ads. There’s a lot to be said for calling them (I just paid for an international add-on and went on a spree calling around)- I found this got me a lot further than emailing, including an interview offer for a job not even advertised.

Interviews:

These are carried out via video call with a panel of 2-3 people. They were quite friendly and informal in my experience. Note, they’re in Australian work hours so will be during the night!

Some of the common questions were:

• why this post

• what are your career thoughts

• any questions about the post

• a clinical scenario

• an ethical/ communication scenario, eg. difficult colleague
  

2. Paperwork to get to Aus

More detail on this in the article linked at top + your hospital should guide you through

1. Create EPIC account for verification of qualifications in preparation for…..

2. AMC application

3. While 1 and 2 are ongoing you can prepare for AHPRA and visa applications:

   • get your passport and medical degree certified (I did this quickly and easily over a WhatsApp video call with nigel@notarywinchester.com)

   • apply for a criminal record check through Fit2work

   • apply for certificate of good standing from GMC

   • obtain ACRO police check

4. Apply for AHPRA provisional registration

5. Apply for visa (you do not need to wait for AHPRA provisional registration to do this). Visa type will depend on hospital- I got 407 (training visa)

6. Apply for COVID travel exemption- your employer will supply you with a travel exemption letter to upload for this

7. Visa health check

Timescales:

For me the process took 10.5 weeks from getting started to getting my provisional AHPRA registration (I was away on holiday for a couple of weeks as well which slowed this down!)

- EPIC took 10 days from first starting to getting verification

- AHPRA provisional registration took 6.5 weeks

- travel exemption came through in 2 days

- Visa came through in 8 days

3. Tying up loose ends in the UK

Things to think about before jetting off.............

Student finance

Unfortunately you have to continue paying back your student loan while abroad.

You need to notify them that you are moving overseas. You can do this by logging into your student finance account. There’s a form called ‘Tell us if you're going overseas or returning to the UK' on the right hand side. You then give them some more information about your job, including your contract, on a form www.gov.uk/update-employment-status. Once you have given them this info they will calculate an amount that you need to pay each month while working abroad.

Tax

Make sure you’ve changed your address with HMRC to a family/ friend’s address in case you get any correspondence while abroad

How the tax situation works depends on how long you will be away for and seems to be a bit of a grey area. I called them up and was told the best thing to do was to complete a p85 form, which is a bit like a tax return. You’ll need your p45 from last employer for this and an address in Aus. I’m yet to complete this so can’t say I know a lot about it!

Sort bills and flat

I was living in a flat share so found a new flatmate to fill my room. Also then had to settle up bills with my flatmates and change the names on the utilities that I was paying for.

Cancel memberships

I cancelled my MDU and BMA memberships

Re GMC, seems to be that people generally relinquish their licence when you go abroad and keep registration. That way, when you return it is easier to get your license again

Sort paperwork

• At home- make sure you’ve sorted your paperwork and left somewhere obvious so that if needed any documents can easily be found by friends/ family if needed

• Prepare documents to take to Aus. I took:

  • passport

  • driving license

  • vaccinations record (asked GP surgery for a print out)

  • other health records + last eye test

  • travel declaration form receipt, inc QR code

  • COVID vaccination certificate

  • print out of visa grant

  • print out of COVID travel exemption

  • evidence of negative PCR test

  • AHPRA provisional registration

  • Health and travel insurance documents

  • copy of my contract

  • police check

  • a couple of bank/ utility statements

Aus health insurance

I’d signed up for this when I was applying for visa, but worth having it to tie you over until you are covered by medicare

Tell banks you are moving to Aus

I was able to just fill out a form on my online banking

One way travel insurance for flight

Probs a good idea to cover your flight for cancellation, delay, baggage loss.

Sell car?

Depends on your situation. Mine was pretty old so would have just sat there gathering insurance and tax and losing value

Health

I went and got a last dental check up and eye test

Also pick up any prescriptions you might need

Phone contract

My provider required 30 days notice to change my contract. I just changed to pay as you go rather than completely cancelling the contract so that i could hold on to my number. Brought my old phone to have as a 'UK phone' with my UK sim in- just in case I received anything important to that number

4. Setting up in Aus

*This section is a bit of a work in progress as I am figuring out a lot of this myself still!

A lot of the below requires an Australian address. Either check with your hospital if they are happy for you to get things sent there or if you know anyone living here already, you could use their address.

Get Australian Certificate of Vaccination

The official process for this requires having a Medicare account (which we won't get until we've been here a few weeks). We were able to find an alternative route by registering for an 'Individual Healthcare Identifier' number on the Australian Gov website. Apparently this can later be linked to your Medicare. We then found a chemist who has access to add us to the AIR (Aus Immunisations Register). In theory any 'vaccine provider' can do this. I've also heard of the council being able to verify if you have an IHI. I'd heard about this email- Jan at 'info@yarracity.vic.gov.au'. You'll then be able to access your digital COVID vaccination certificate via the Aus Government Website.

Set up an Aussie bank account

Some of the banks let you set up an account from the UK, then you just go to pick up your card from a nominated branch with your ID. The main banks seem to be Commonwealth, ANZ and Westpac

Aussie phone plan

I’ve heard the best coverage is with Optus and Telstra. I was able to get a sim from the quarantine hotel reception and then loaded it with a plan. Most of the plans have unlimited international calls and texts to UK. My aussie friend told me it’s good to get a lot of data as the wifi can be a bit hit and miss here.

Completion of AHPRA application

You need to present to your hospital for this. You'll need your passport, an in date police check and certificate of good standing

Apply for medicare

Eligible under reciprocal agreement as we are UK citizens. Complete application form (MS004) and email to mes@servicesaustralia.gov.au with the subject 'new enrolment SURNAME, FIRSTNAME'. Takes a few weeks to come through

Occupational health

I had to provide evidence of vaccinations and some serology tests to hospital. They gave me a form for getting the outstanding serology tests done at the hospital.

Tax file number

Fill out form online

Working with children check

Can fill out form online, but since we have foreign passports we’ll have to complete the identity verification at a post office.

Medicare provider number

Paper form that is posted off. Requires AHPRA number

Statutory declaration

Signed statement confirming that what you have said on your enrolment forms is true. This needs to be witnessed and certified.

Indemnity

If you’re with MPS then apparently you can transfer that straight across to MIPS. The hospitals will provide some cover. I was informed by my hospital to ask around the other doctors about who they use for indemnity, so haven't sorted this yet

Accommodation

I am initially staying at an AirBNB/ hostels while I do viewings. Looked for flat shares on “flatmates.au" and 'https://www.flatmatefinders.com.au'

5. The flights

Organising

Currently the borders are essentially closed unless you are an Australian national or have COVID travel exemption like us for skilled work. The other issue is the caps. If you try and book a flight like you normally would, you probably won’t find one until months and months away and it will probably cost a fortune. Not only that, but you might face being bumped off the flight due to the strict caps on the numbers entering Aus.

As health professionals, we are allowed to enter Aus above the caps but this requires authorisation with the government.

I organised the flight through Netwave (my hospital have partnered with them). They require you to have all your paperwork done (AHPRA, visa, travel exemption) before they will look into flights. You upload all these onto an online form along with an indication of when you are available to fly.

I think the timescale can vary depending on when your contract starts, when your UK accommodation ends, when you are first available, but for me it was very quick. They say that generally it takes about a week after uploading paperwork to get an offer- they usually give 2-3 weeks notice. Once you get a flight offer things move pretty fast.

It did seem a little elusive to start off with as the initial offer is only provisional until there is final approval from the Dept of Health and the Quarantine allocation is finalised. You pay online (I paid 2643 AUD for London--> Melbourne). After payment there is a bit of a hiatus while quarantine allocation is confirmed with the federal govt and the seats are confirmed with the airline. I received my flight e-itinerary and detailed final info a few days before the flight.

I felt a bit clueless about the quarantine. Friends and family were asking me more about it and it felt disconcerting that I did not know which hotel or any details about how it worked. However it is in hand- you don’t need to worry! Also, on arrival at your hotel, you get a whole folder of comprehensive info on how things work.

Flying

Before flying there are a few things you need to do:

• victoria quarantine form

• travel declaration

• PCR test not more than 72hrs before flight

At the airport:

Make sure you arrive in PLENTY of time. The queue for check in was long and slow due to the extra paperwork requirements. Be sure to have your PCR test, visa and passport to hand.

I flew with Qatar airways. A couple of things to note…. Their hold luggage allowance is 30kg, however I got away with 31.5kg and met someone who got away with 32.5kg so I wouldn’t necessarily pay excess baggage prior to getting to the airport. Worth seeing if you can get away with it if you ask me! Whilst they specify only one carry-on item and a small bag, a lot of people had carry-on suitcases (many of which looked bigger than the specified dimensions) as well as a day backpack. Did not see anyone having their hand luggage weighed, so this could be a way of sneaking in some extra kilos! I for one packed 10kg into my rucksack (3kg more than the specified 7kg)! If you are planning on buying anything on route like toiletries, do not do this at Doha as it is ridiculously expensive.

On the flight:

Make sure you have some hand cream as you’ll be sanitising a lot

Use the loo before you get off the plane is Aus. I did not spot any toilet opportunities during the whole COVID process on arrival, which took a good hour.

On arrival:

It felt strange arriving to people fully donned wearing fpp3 masks and visors. There were a lot of different stages- temperature checks, checking for any symptoms, explaining quarantine, further security.

We were loaded onto a bus and taken to our hotel. On arrival there were police and army outside. We got off the bus one by one. More temperature and symptom checks. We were checked in and taken to our rooms.

6. Quarantine

I think I was rather lucky to get assigned Novotel in Melbourne.

The staff have actually been very friendly and I have received lots of welfare calls. I'd say on average I get 3 calls a day, so people are deft checking in on you! There is a doctor on site and also a mental health team. Reception are very helpful, eg. sent me up a sim card.

The food has been alright, although too much of it. They bring it to the door, knock and then you pick it up. It is all served in disposable packaging due to infection control but we have 3 sets of cutlery to use, that we wash ourselves each day. No mugs, so if you're a tea person, might be worth bringing one!

You are not allowed out of your room at all, not even for short breaks.

You are able to get deliveries to your room, just no care packages from family or friends.

I was able to keep myself fairly well occupied by having a to do list (a mixture of some of the things earlier in this post and life admin like clearing old pictures), watching films/TV and doing some online exercise classes. Worth bringing an HDMI cable if you want to be able to watch on the TV rather than laptop.

We were supplied with a list of places you could rent fitness equipment from.

HOT OFF THE PRESS: On my 5th day, we received a mysterious email that quarantine requirements have changed to be only 7 days if you are double vaccinated. This is on the condition that you can provide evidence of an *Australian* vaccine certificate and test negative on day 6. Things are a bit up in the air at the moment as this seems to have been a very sudden change. It is not clear what the official process is for getting an Aus vaccine certificate if you are not from Australia and don't yet have medicare, but we found a way- see 'Setting up in Aus' section. Hopefully this will become more clear in weeks to come.

NB. We had toiletries provided (soap, shower gel, shampoo, conditioner) so you can probably save some weight by not packing these.

Best of luck with it all! It's all rather confusing but will hopefully be worth it in the end! :)