I feel almost naked baring all these details of my personal life to the world. But I am so livid at this moment, probably not unlike a woman who has just been raped! On the one hand, it is not too pleasant having people coming to me to say they feel bad for you when they can have no conception of what leading a life fighting all the unpleasant consequences of your state (being a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, or battling all the daily implications that a disease like MS imposes on a victim) without the further recent insult that has been added to the injury faced daily, by a totally inhuman attitude. On the other hand, I feel like screaming WTF from the rooftops and shaming the rapist. So let me give a blow-by-blow description of the things leading up to this latest insult - rejection of my application for a visa only because I have MS.
In an earlier blogpost http://differentstrokes-vss.blogspot.in/2015/11/will-it-be-msed-opportunity.html I had said my application for a visa to visit our daughter in New Zealand on our 25th wedding anniversary (in mid-December) was stalled by a statement that the medical assessors normally take 12 weeks to make an assessment of the medical records, which had incidentally been sent to them in late October/early November. Then I was informed on Nov 21st that the medical assessor had sent his initial comments (Applicant has multiple sclerosis with very limited mobility and requires significant carer support), with his reason (The applicant has a physical, intellectual, cognitive and/or sensory incapacity which requires full time care, including care in the community) and opinion (Likely NOT ASH), with ASH standing for acceptable standard of health! I was told, nevertheless, that my application had not been turned down, and I could make counter-comments and give an alternate medical opinion from a reputable doctor.
So I sent a long email accepting the offer to rebut on all three counts (comments, reason and opinion of the medical assessor) as well as providing alternative medical assessment from a reputed doctor. I quote the relevant parts of that email:
As for the MA's opinion regarding shortcomings in my intellectual or cognitive capacity, I should inform you that I am a mathematician of some international repute, as may be seen from my home-page at http://www.imsc.res.in/~sunder/ (maybe you should look up V.S. Sunder in Wikipedia; but that entry is old: I have now written 2 more books and more than 10 more papers since the date of the wiki entry). In fact, since my condition was diagnosed as MS in 2002, I have written four books and thirty-odd papers in research journals, as well as receiveing (one of only 120) Distinguished Alumnus Awards of IIT(Madras) from a total of some 40,000 alumni. Not bad for an intellectually and cognitively impaired dude, eh!
Regarding the comment `very limited mobility and requiring significant carer support', you can see from my passports (and from my home-page) that I have, on invitation, lectured and/or attended conferences in UBC, Vancouver, Canada in 2006, Max Planck Institut, Bonn, Germany in 2007, BIRS, Banff, Canada in 2008, Vanderbilt Univ, USA in 2010, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK in 2012, Berkeley, Calif, USA and The Fields Institute, Toronto, Canada in 2013; inside India, I have been doing almost monthly work-related travel to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Bangalore, ... , always with my wife and care-giver, and have never had any health-related incidents in the past ten years and more that my wife and I could not handle, ourselves, as can be seen from copies of the MRI reports that I gave during my medical tests. In fact, in spite of my planned two-week trip to NZ, I have committed to attending conferences/meetings in (i) Bangalore in the first week of December, (ii) Chandigarh in the first week of January, and (iii) back in Chennai in the second two weeks of January.
Very limited mobility?
As for the `likely NOT ASH' comment, I had certainly anticipated no trouble with a two-week visit to New Zealand, until I was hit by the reality that being an Indian with MS has necessitated my filling visa application forms and stating that I have MS, and facing this mountain of a bureaucratic hurdle. If I was an American with MS, then I would not have needed to fill a visa form, and no one would have known that I had MS and was potentially `NOT ASH' until I strolled (or rather wheeled) into NZ!
An attached scanned and attested copy of a letter from my neurologist certifies in his concluding paragraph that I `can travel to New Zealand or any other place'. My doctor is Dr. Krishnamoortthy Srinivas, who's letterhead shows that he is:
(a) an Honorary Member of the American Neurological Association;
(b) an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Neurology;
(c) an Honorary Member of the International Neuropsychiatry Association; and
(d) Regional Advisor to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Scotland (Tamil Nadu), among other things.
This should certainly qualify as a `medical opinion from a suitably qualified professional' which disputes your original assessment that I am not of an acceptable standard of health', and should go some way towards overriding your MA's verdict. Let me end by saying that I will be very disappointed if this email, with its attachment, do not suffice to let me be issued a visa. In that case, I would be forced to conclude that nobody from India with a condition like MS (not even if he were a Stephen Hawking) would ever be permitted to enter NZ - which would incidentally contravene at least five of the principles (listed below) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, to which NZ became a signatory on 30th March, 2007!
I ended the email by quoting the UNCRPD exactly as in the earlier bloodspot referred to above.
December came and went, and we consoled our daughter saying that we would, instead, try to come for her graduation. Then I received a letter saying bluntly that my application for a visa was being turned down because the medical assessor had decided that I was definitely NOT ASH.
The medical assessors of kiwi-land are apparently far more accomplished and decorated than my doctor to see things in the future that he cannot!
Does being signatory to the UNCRPD carry no obligations? I urge the reader (and the Prime Minister and other dignitaries in the NZ Govt) to review the major principles (also listed out in the earlier blogspot) of the UNCRPD and form an opinion.
In an earlier blogpost http://differentstrokes-vss.blogspot.in/2015/11/will-it-be-msed-opportunity.html I had said my application for a visa to visit our daughter in New Zealand on our 25th wedding anniversary (in mid-December) was stalled by a statement that the medical assessors normally take 12 weeks to make an assessment of the medical records, which had incidentally been sent to them in late October/early November. Then I was informed on Nov 21st that the medical assessor had sent his initial comments (Applicant has multiple sclerosis with very limited mobility and requires significant carer support), with his reason (The applicant has a physical, intellectual, cognitive and/or sensory incapacity which requires full time care, including care in the community) and opinion (Likely NOT ASH), with ASH standing for acceptable standard of health! I was told, nevertheless, that my application had not been turned down, and I could make counter-comments and give an alternate medical opinion from a reputable doctor.
So I sent a long email accepting the offer to rebut on all three counts (comments, reason and opinion of the medical assessor) as well as providing alternative medical assessment from a reputed doctor. I quote the relevant parts of that email:
As for the MA's opinion regarding shortcomings in my intellectual or cognitive capacity, I should inform you that I am a mathematician of some international repute, as may be seen from my home-page at http://www.imsc.res.in/~sunder/ (maybe you should look up V.S. Sunder in Wikipedia; but that entry is old: I have now written 2 more books and more than 10 more papers since the date of the wiki entry). In fact, since my condition was diagnosed as MS in 2002, I have written four books and thirty-odd papers in research journals, as well as receiveing (one of only 120) Distinguished Alumnus Awards of IIT(Madras) from a total of some 40,000 alumni. Not bad for an intellectually and cognitively impaired dude, eh!
Regarding the comment `very limited mobility and requiring significant carer support', you can see from my passports (and from my home-page) that I have, on invitation, lectured and/or attended conferences in UBC, Vancouver, Canada in 2006, Max Planck Institut, Bonn, Germany in 2007, BIRS, Banff, Canada in 2008, Vanderbilt Univ, USA in 2010, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK in 2012, Berkeley, Calif, USA and The Fields Institute, Toronto, Canada in 2013; inside India, I have been doing almost monthly work-related travel to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Bangalore, ... , always with my wife and care-giver, and have never had any health-related incidents in the past ten years and more that my wife and I could not handle, ourselves, as can be seen from copies of the MRI reports that I gave during my medical tests. In fact, in spite of my planned two-week trip to NZ, I have committed to attending conferences/meetings in (i) Bangalore in the first week of December, (ii) Chandigarh in the first week of January, and (iii) back in Chennai in the second two weeks of January.
Very limited mobility?
As for the `likely NOT ASH' comment, I had certainly anticipated no trouble with a two-week visit to New Zealand, until I was hit by the reality that being an Indian with MS has necessitated my filling visa application forms and stating that I have MS, and facing this mountain of a bureaucratic hurdle. If I was an American with MS, then I would not have needed to fill a visa form, and no one would have known that I had MS and was potentially `NOT ASH' until I strolled (or rather wheeled) into NZ!
An attached scanned and attested copy of a letter from my neurologist certifies in his concluding paragraph that I `can travel to New Zealand or any other place'. My doctor is Dr. Krishnamoortthy Srinivas, who's letterhead shows that he is:
(a) an Honorary Member of the American Neurological Association;
(b) an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Neurology;
(c) an Honorary Member of the International Neuropsychiatry Association; and
(d) Regional Advisor to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Scotland (Tamil Nadu), among other things.
This should certainly qualify as a `medical opinion from a suitably qualified professional' which disputes your original assessment that I am not of an acceptable standard of health', and should go some way towards overriding your MA's verdict. Let me end by saying that I will be very disappointed if this email, with its attachment, do not suffice to let me be issued a visa. In that case, I would be forced to conclude that nobody from India with a condition like MS (not even if he were a Stephen Hawking) would ever be permitted to enter NZ - which would incidentally contravene at least five of the principles (listed below) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, to which NZ became a signatory on 30th March, 2007!
I ended the email by quoting the UNCRPD exactly as in the earlier bloodspot referred to above.
December came and went, and we consoled our daughter saying that we would, instead, try to come for her graduation. Then I received a letter saying bluntly that my application for a visa was being turned down because the medical assessor had decided that I was definitely NOT ASH.
The medical assessors of kiwi-land are apparently far more accomplished and decorated than my doctor to see things in the future that he cannot!
Does being signatory to the UNCRPD carry no obligations? I urge the reader (and the Prime Minister and other dignitaries in the NZ Govt) to review the major principles (also listed out in the earlier blogspot) of the UNCRPD and form an opinion.
What can one say? Feel terrible.
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