The Medical

The purpose of this is to assure the Canadian Government and its people that we (the applicants) are in sound health and will not put a burden on the economy or endanger the health of Canadian citizens.

Every applicant and their dependents (regardless of whether the dependents are accompanying them or not) must have a medical. In other words, if you are divorced and your ex-spouse has custody of the children and will not be accompanying you, the children still need to have a medical. Non-dependent children over the age of 18 who will not be accompanying you do not have to have the medical but expect to be asked about it and expect to have to explain. Maybe even provide a letter from the adult offspring.

Every applicant/dependent over the age of 11 has to have a chest x-ray. Please consider this fact if you are pregnant, you may have to delay the medical until after the baby's birth. Many doctors will do a chest x-ray on a pregnant mother these days. I am told that it is no more dangerous than a dental x-ray or flying. I do not know the stats though so don;t take my word as gospel. It is up to you and your doctors. The medicals take a minimum of several weeks to be approved. The final decision is made by the Canadian government and not by the desgnated medical practitioner. Most airlines will not permit women who are more then seven months pregnant to fly. So you are going to be cutting it fine if you do decide to go ahead and x-ray the pregnant mother. If you wait until the baby is born you then add that dependent to your application. This usually does not delay thngs too much provided everything else has been approved.

Also, if approved, the Landing Paper will be dated for the anniversary of your medical, so although you are given a fairly limited time frame to get the medical done - about 60 days - count ahead one year and see when the deadline will be for landing.....you may want to delay until after the end of the tax year for instance...or perhaps after the end of the school year.....

Our medicals... Our experience of the medical.

Here is a description by a fellow applicant - My thanks to Sarma:-

Here is a text of the medical exam. I think it would be slightly this way or that, but the same for every one. Cautions are given in the text.The golden rule to remember is, talk only when necessary. :-)

Step 1. Call the 800 number for an appointment with the doctor's office. Tell the 800 number people how you pay. CAUTION :- Doctor's office does not accept credit cards or cash or any payment. Payment must be made to the 800 number people. After fixing an appointment, call the doctor's office and confirm the appointment. Ask if you have to come on empty stomach. It is not necessary to go on empty stomach, unless you have some other complications. (Normally eat well before you go because you have to stand for a long time and patiently wait there for over 4 hours). If you use medications or glasses, hearing aids, crutches or even a tooth pick, carry it with you. They will want to see how sharp is your tooth pick or how dull is your hearing aid is. If you are dieting, eat a lot, it is quite O.K. Keep doing that good job.

Step 2. Get into the doctor's office and find your position. OK, the nurse will be given your name and file and she will come and call you. Please be seated. OK, take all the magazines around and start reading. Rest assured that no one will call you until you finish all those books. If you are lucky you will find a book dated in the 1990s. :-) If you are still not called in, sleep on those books. They will ultimately wake you up.

Step 3. "Hi I am Nurse Laura, please come in and have a seat. "(again ?)OK, get in and now you will be locked in a 12 X 12 room without even a single magazine or any useful object around. If you feel like sleeping on the couch in that room, go ahead. Laura will *NOT* come back for another half an hour. OK, she is back, get up : she will ask you to wear an apron (feign as if you are fearful and not at all interested to cook) and see how high are you. OK you are 6 feet 7 inches and weight about 500 pounds. Quite healthy. Then she will check your blood pressure. Mine was 130/85. Even if yours is 160/110 do not worry, she will smile at you and just write that down. Do not try to introduce yourself or comment on her hair style. Never talk about her ugly gown in the first place. Just be a good person for the four hours. Now shew ill take you to the eye exam. Remove your glasses and read those obscure looking letters on that distant wall. It matters very little whether you know English or not. Just say C, E, R, T, P, M, N, O. These are the only letters used for eye testing. In fact, the C that appears is not C at all, it is called landolt's ring. Do not worry, your eye sight is excellent, even if you wear glasses. You are able to recognize the nurse as Laura. What else you need to prove ? OK, she will then ask for the color of small bands. Which ?red, black brown white and so on.. Even if you are color blind it does not matter. We will see how at the end of this. I read all letters with glasses and identified colors well. (Not color blind)

Now you are back to your room to sleep happily. The doctor will not come for another one hour. Guaranteed. OK, the Doc is in. I am Dr. Peter, he would say. You say "I am pleased to meet you Dr. Peter ". He will ask you, do you have any problems ? I think it is best to admit if you have any. Let him write what he wants on the paper he has. Never worry. Do not even look at what he is writing. OK, then he will ask you to lie flat and see if he can touch your legs, arms, chest and tongue with the forceps and all other instruments he has. Nowadays doctors do not believe if you have four limbs properly. They have to touch and feel it (like the referees in a Wimbledon tennis game) to think that you have the four limbs. Now he takes a small hammer and tests your nervous ends by tapping the elbow joints and knee caps. Whenever he taps, jerk a bit to show that you are feeling it, even if you do not really feel it due to the last nite's whiskey party. Now, he asks you - do you have asthma ? Dumb question. If you have asthma, why on earth you want to migrate to snow bound country near north pole ? Oh, you have it. Just say yes or no. The answer does not matter. Becoz asthma is controllable and with medications, life is easier in Canada.

Now remove all your clothes and he will check everything. Also ask you to cough once or twice. Just follow what he asks you to do. Do not resist or say anything. Now he will test your hearing. He will walk about 4 feet away from you and ask you to turn towards the wall and close the right ear and listen with the left. He will whisper something and say " OK ? " It really does not matter whether you hear it or not. Just say OK. Repeat with the right ear and another OK. Some Docs might as well ask you to tell back what he said. For me he did not say that. I was lucky in that sense, becoz I heard only his "OK ?" but not anything else. :-))) Hearing impairment or deafness is NOT a restriction unless you have some infection inside the ear. Oops, forgot he can also check your ear channels with a tube like torch light and see if they are clean. So if you do not maintain high degree of hygiene, better do clean before you go to him. That is all with the doctor. He will walk out and you can resume your sleeping once again.

Another half an hour and now returneth Laura ! She will now ask you whether you have any problems. Again ? So you look at the first page of the medical sheet and say an emphatic NO. OK she will tick all those in quick succession and ask you to sign that form. Sign it. It is a big joke actually. For me the doctor wrote "high frequency hearing loss" on the second page but the nurse said "NO" for hearing problems question on the first page. God knows what they did in this. Now she takes a syringe and wants to take a couple of ml of your blood. It is quite safe and not at all painful. Of course it is because you said Laura's dress is excellent. Now, you can carry your shirt and with the apron walk like a sacrificial goat behind her to the bathroom. Get into the bathroom with the bottle she handles you and give her some urine. That is just to see whether you are diabetic. Even if you take insulin for your diabetes, just do not worry at all. Next Laura will leave you with another nurse, Janet. Janet wants to see if you have broken ribs or punctured lugs or expanded heart with an X-ray. Remove the shirt and stand where she asks you to. She will disappear from that room (bcoz the radiation is dangerous and the radiation coming out of one's body is more dangerous than the original). She will come back in a few minutes and say 'OK mister (miss), you are done with. We will send the report ASAP". Just say thank you and move on. That is it.

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Now the details of results. The results of the medical exam are sent to Ottawa and Ottawa people never bother or have to time to see if you are a doctorate, physician or the great Albert Einstein. They will just check the results and see if you put a heavy burden on the medical system of Canada. So whatever the doctor did was, record the results of what you have. The doctor does not take a decision. Ottawa people do and hopefully they do so with a group of physicians who are working either full or part time there. Depending on their moods (if they have fought with their wives on that given ill fated day) they will say yes or no. How do they decide ? Here is some clue. Medical results come anywhere between M1 to M6. M1- M3 are admissible and M4- M6 are not. Hearing impediments, polio, color blindness, night blindness, hypertension, diabetes, a big white patch on your hand, over weight, wearing eye glasses and similar things like two missing fingers on your left hand all fall in M1-M3. They might after all ask you to retest if they doubt. They doubt if they have very very leisure time and have no arranged party that weekend. (This is my feeling). Cancer, heart disease, and extreme diseases like these may be inadmissible. As long as you have no serious disease like these terminal ones, you are going to Canada for sure. It might be delayed somewhat for some stupid paper work. But you will get your papers ultimately. Instead of selling your car right away after the medicals, it is better to wait till you get the landing papers bcoz car prices are going to be up. Not becoz you doubt your landing papers. Only hitch in the medicals is the high cost of medicals. It is almost 300 dollars in USA. Are they nuts or what ? You bet they are. In fact they are the nuttiest people you can ever meet in these states. Good wishes and best of luck.

My thanks to Sarma for that account.

I think you get the general drift of what the medical involves. As Sarma mentioned, minor illness will not be a bar to immigration but anything likely to cost the Canadian government money or that is a danger to the Canadian public will result in rejection.

What about the interview?