Doctors from outside EU waiting up to year for family visa decisions

Liqa ur Rehman said visa rejections and delays are leading to depression and ill-health among doctors from outside the EU who are working here.

Doctors from outside the EU working in Ireland are waiting up to 12 months to hear if their families can get a visa to come here, the Irish Society of International Doctors (ISID) has said.

Many have waited eight months only to get a refusal, a survey of its members shows.

ISID co-founder Liqa ur Rehman said the situation is leading to depression and ill-health and in some cases to doctors leaving Ireland.

“There is a pool of doctors who are affected,” said Dr Rehman.

“This is impacting negatively on their relationships as well.”

He attended a stakeholders meeting organised by the Department of Justice late last year and shared the findings with them, but has not yet had a response.

“The rejection rate is very, very high at 75% and the waiting time is more than eight or nine months for a family visa.

“Sometimes, people invited their parents on a tourist visa for visiting, and it also took a year. You can apply this summer and you might get a visit next summer. On the website, it says four weeks or six weeks, which is ridiculous.”

Just last week, a doctor in specialist consultant training was refused a visa for his wife and three-year-old daughter, having applied in July 2023.

I met him, he told me his story and I was feeling so sad for him. He is missing his daughter, he held her picture in his hand.”

That doctor has worked here since 2016, mostly in emergency departments, and he recently switched to psychiatry.

He married in 2019, but the pandemic delayed their plans to reunite.

He has visited his wife and daughter at their home in Pakistan, but is desperate to bring them here.

The man has needed help with his mental health “three to four times in the last few years” due to loneliness, said Dr Rehman.

A gynaecologist was refused a visa for her two children and husband.

“She told me ‘I have no hope’. She is saying ‘I am going to leave, I am going to go back to Pakistan’.”

A social media post shared by Dr Rehman on Sunday about the situation has gathered thousands of likes.

Irish Medical Council data shows that 53.8% of new doctors in Ireland in 2022 came from outside the EU.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said it cannot comment on individual cases but each applicant receives a letter explaining reasons for refusals.

"The Policy Document for Non-EEA Family Reunification, which is available on the Department's website and was last amended in 2016, is currently under review," she said.

Work has also started on unifying the system of dealing with employment permits and immigration permissions separately.

"While the current processing times for Join family visa applications may vary across the different visa decision making centres globally, the processing times are largely in line with the expected processing times published across the Immigration Service Delivery websites of 6 months for Irish citizens and 12 months for Non-EEA nationals", she added.