Exclusive: Sameer Mutreja has spent eight years living in Australia and says he considers it his home.
After arriving in Sydney from his native India in 2017 on a student visa, Mutreja completed two university degrees in project management while working part-time in the construction industry.
Considered an ideal candidate for permanent residency because of his skills, Mutreja was invited by the New South Wales government to apply for a state-sponsored visa in January 2020.
His future in Australia seemed all but assured.
Having passed all the required health and police checks, Mutreja – who now co-owns a local construction company – was expecting his visa to be approved within a matter of months.
Then the pandemic hit, and visa processing times blew out.
Mutreja waited almost two years for his visa application to be processed.
Then, his health took a turn for the worse after having a bad reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine in November 2021.
“A week after I had the vaccine, I started getting double vision and vertigo,” Mutreja said.
Thinking he needed stronger glasses, Mutreja went to an optometrist and then an eye specialist, who diagnosed him with an inflamed optical nerve.
A few months later, in April 2022, Mutreja said he started noticing other strange symptoms.
“I had issues with my hands, they went numb. I couldn’t hold a spoon. I had pins and needles going from my legs all the way up my chest.”
After seeing a doctor and getting an MRI test, Mutreja was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
The construction site manager said his doctor did not believe the COVID-19 vaccine had caused his MS, however, he advised him his body’s reaction to the shot might have triggered the onset of his illness.
Mutreja said it didn’t occur to him that his MS diagnosis would pose a problem for his visa application, which was still pending.
In October 2022, Mutreja was asked to complete another health check as his first one had expired.
A few months later, in January 2023, Mutreja received a notification from the Department of Home Affairs that his permanent visa had been refused and he was now facing deportation.
“I was in shock,” Mutreja said.
“I had to speak to multiple lawyers to understand what was happening, because I didn’t even know what it meant.”
In its ruling, the Department of Home Affairs said Mutreja exceeded the “significant cost threshold”, which calculates the hypothetical cost of an individual’s healthcare needs over 10 years and triggers deportation if it is more than $86,000.
Mutreja said the decision did not seem right.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I followed the rules to a T and I’ve been a tax-paying resident from day dot, it’s not fair,” he said.
The construction manager said his condition was being well-managed through lifestyle changes and medication.
The current drug he was taking for his MS was also a generic one, which cost far less than the amount triggered by the significant cost threshold, he said.
Mutreja said he was willing to pay for his healthcare costs, however, this was not an option the department would accept.
Like Mutreja, Mathers was deemed an economic burden to Australia because of her MS diagnosis.
Days after 9news.com.au published the article, Immigration Minister Tony Burke personally intervened and granted the couple permanent residency.
Mutreja said the fact that the minister needed to intervene showed the policy of issuing blanket rejections for visa applicants with certain health conditions was wrong.
“It (the policy) does need change,” he said.
“There has to be someone looking at it case by case. There has to be some kind of personal understanding.”
Mutreja has lodged an appeal with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), however, he now faces a wait of up to four years for his case to be assessed.
Immigration lawyer Adrian Joel, who is acting on behalf of Mutreja, said his client’s case was concerning in many respects, chief among them was the refusal of the department to take into consideration the actual cost of his treatment.
“In Sameer’s case, he’s being treated with off-label, generic drugs (prescribed) by leading experts in Australia, but the government just won’t recognise the medicine,” he said.
“I just think it’s absolutely appalling that they won’t even consider it, particularly in the case of Sameer, who is an extremely competent, senior-level professional.”
Last year, the Department of Home Affairs conducted a review of its use of the significant cost threshold to determine visa applications, after a push from the Greens, who have called the policy “discriminatory”.
The report found almost 2300 visa applicants exceeded the significant cost threshold in 2022-2023.
The total estimated costs of the health services hypothetically required by those visa applicants was $1.06 billion.
However, the 30-year-old policy was not in tune with medical advancements and prevented some people living with stable and managed health conditions, such as HIV, Crohn’s Disease and skin disorders like psoriasis, from being granted a permanent visa, the report found.
A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said the department was unable to comment on individual cases.
“The Department of Home Affairs administers the health requirement to protect the community from public health and safety risks, contain public expenditure on health care and community services, and safeguard the access of Australian citizens and permanent residents to health care and community services,” the spokesperson said.
“The health requirement is not condition-specific and the assessment is undertaken individually for each applicant based on their condition and level of severity.”
