Physio Hannah shares her experience of migrating to Perth with her family!
‘Our Aussie Dream’
It has been a dream of mine and my husband to move to Australia ever since we first travelled to the country way back in 2002 and many great holidays their since. Unfortunately, life got in the way and for one reason or another we never got round to making it happen. Fast forward to 2019, after the arrival of my son, we knew we had to give it a go. So, we got our act together and started the process to move down under. I started getting things in motion; applying to the Australian Physiotherapy Council to get my degree and physio skills assessed, completing their physio exam, completing an English test to booster my visa points and submitting my expressing of interest to the Australian government. Then the pandemic struck and Australia shut their borders. That’s it, I thought our chance of getting a visa was over! It’s now winter 2021 and by chance of luck I saw an advert one night on Instagram for Health Care Abroad. I had a quick look, did a bit of research, and decided to reach out to them. To cut a long story short, after a few emails and a lovely chat one night, Jon had arranged two interviews with employers in Australia (and specifically the state we wanted to move to) who were willing to sponsor myself and my family to move down under. My family and I have now been living in Western Australia for 4 months and we are absolutely loving our new life. I still can’t believe that it has finally happened and so quickly. My interviews were in February this year, I received my visa in May and we moved over in June to start my new job in September. In that time, we sold our house, shipped our belongings, quit our jobs, moved into my sisters’ caravan for 6 weeks, flew 17 hours with a 2-year-old who has never been on a plane before, found a lovely place to live in Perth, settled my son into play school and finally started my new job as a physio. It’s been one hell of an adventure to get here but I wouldn’t change it for the world. My 3 pieces of advice for anyone thinking of moving to Australia; 1) Just go for it. Ask yourself this, would you regret not giving it a go when you are no longer able to? My answer was yes, I rather give it a go then regret not trying. What have you got to loose? 2) Be organized and do your research. It’s a big move especially if your aim is to stay in Australia permanently. Write a list of everything you need to do/sort and tick them off as you go. I could easily write a whole essay on what you need to do before, during and after moving! 3) Speak to Health Care Abroad. They are very knowledgeable about the options available and have been extremely helpful throughout the whole process. I would highly recommend them if you’re thinking of working as a PT, OT or Speech therapist in Australia.
Lastly, I want to say a massive thank you to Jon and the team at Health Care Abroad for making mine and my husband’s20-year dreamcome true. We are well and truly living the Aussie dream.
