Jijumon has been living in Victoria's Craigieburn with his wife for almost a decade on a skilled sponsored visa.
All these years, he has been paying hundreds of dollars each month as a health insurance premium.
“We have no other options to meet our medical expenses in Australia,” Jijumon tells SBS Malayalam.
“A few days after reaching Australia we went to Centrelink to see if we could get Medicare coverage, but we were told 'no'.”
The visa subclass 489 or the Skilled Regional (Provisional) Visa, which Mr. Jijumon and his wife are on, is not covered under Medicare - Australia’s publicly funded universal healthcare system.
However, when this visa is repealed and replaced by the newly announced regional visa subclass 491 by mid-November, things will be different.
