What if I have active TB? Should I drop my application? Please help me!

[gavinchan]

Hi, everyone
I submitted my profile for permanent residence on July, 2019, but was unfortunately diagnosed with tuberculous pleuritis later in the year. And today, I found out that I have been invited on March 04, 2020 to apply for permanent residence with a CRS score of 472. I haven’t logged in to check my emails and the status of my profile for quite a while, and I am struggling now and don't know what to do.
I want to continue because this is a life-changing opportunity for me and no one would know whether the CRS score of lowest-ranked candidate invited would just keep going up. And it is so hard to apply from China with candidates from all over the world. My doctor who ran me a sputum culture told me that it is negative, meaning I am not infectious and I have been taking medicine and doing regular tests for almost four months now. I am still working and only have some very mild symptoms.
What if I continue with my application, will my failure in passing the medical exam will result in being disqualified forever from this express entry program? Does anyone know anything about my situation? Please enlighten me! Thanks in advance!

 

[scylla]

Hi, everyone
I submitted my profile for permanent residence on July, 2019, but was unfortunately diagnosed with tuberculous pleuritis later in the year. And today, I found out that I have been invited on March 04, 2020 to apply for permanent residence with a CRS score of 472. I haven’t logged in to check my emails and the status of my profile for quite a while, and I am struggling now and don't know what to do.
I want to continue because this is a life-changing opportunity for me and no one would know whether the CRS score of lowest-ranked candidate invited would just keep going up. And it is so hard to apply from China with candidates from all over the world. My doctor who ran me a sputum culture told me that it is negative, meaning I am not infectious and I have been taking medicine and doing regular tests for almost four months now. I am still working and only have some very mild symptoms.
What if I continue with my application, will my failure in passing the medical exam will result in being disqualified forever from this express entry program? Does anyone know anything about my situation? Please enlighten me! Thanks in advance!

It depends what comes out of the medical you will have to do for the Express Entry application. If the medical shows that you have / had TB, you will have to take several months of treatments and be re-tested before you can be approved. Your application cannot be approved while you have active TB. So yes, it's certainly possible to be approved but you may need to go through a few months of treatment and go through additional medical tests to prove you are clear.

 

[gavinchan]

It depends what comes out of the medical you will have to do for the Express Entry application. If the medical shows that you have / had TB, you will have to take several months of treatments and be re-tested before you can be approved. Your application cannot be approved while you have active TB. So yes, it's certainly possible to be approved but you may need to go through a few months of treatment and go through additional medical tests to prove you are clear.

Thanks for your reply, scylla. So you are saying that even if I continue with my application, I won't be directly rejected after I am detected active with TB in the medical exam. Instead, I will go through treatment and my application will be suspended and approved until I fully recover from TB. My only concern is that I hope it won't get me disqualified from EE if chose to continue.

 

[scylla]

Thanks for your reply, scylla. So you are saying that even if I continue with my application, I won't be directly rejected after I am detected active with TB in the medical exam. Instead, I will go through treatment and my application will be suspended and approved until I fully recover from TB. My only concern is that I hope it won't get me disqualified from EE if chose to continue.

That's right. This may delay the application process but should not cause rejection (unless for some reason you can't get a clean medical).

 

[coolgal]

Hi, everyone
I submitted my profile for permanent residence on July, 2019, but was unfortunately diagnosed with tuberculous pleuritis later in the year. And today, I found out that I have been invited on March 04, 2020 to apply for permanent residence with a CRS score of 472. I haven’t logged in to check my emails and the status of my profile for quite a while, and I am struggling now and don't know what to do.
I want to continue because this is a life-changing opportunity for me and no one would know whether the CRS score of lowest-ranked candidate invited would just keep going up. And it is so hard to apply from China with candidates from all over the world. My doctor who ran me a sputum culture told me that it is negative, meaning I am not infectious and I have been taking medicine and doing regular tests for almost four months now. I am still working and only have some very mild symptoms.
What if I continue with my application, will my failure in passing the medical exam will result in being disqualified forever from this express entry program? Does anyone know anything about my situation? Please enlighten me! Thanks in advance!

Don’t worry. Let public health know and they will guide you about the treatment. As far as immigration is concerned, get a letter from the doctor treating you and using the web form/contact agent, let IRCC know of your treatment. Gather all the documents as usual. What they usually do in ongoing TB cases is keeping your file on hold. You do everything you need to do, let the physician pass your medical reports to CIC, and with that also include a letter from Infectious disease doctor treating you outlining your treatment plan and how long it will take.

Don’t decline your ITA..you continue the process. I ended up declining my ITA because of the pain and couldn’t do any paper work.

I’m waiting for an ITA now..

 

[gavinchan]

Don’t worry. Let public health know and they will guide you about the treatment. As far as immigration is concerned, get a letter from the doctor treating you and using the web form/contact agent, let IRCC know of your treatment. Gather all the documents as usual. What they usually do in ongoing TB cases is keeping your file on hold. You do everything you need to do, let the physician pass your medical reports to CIC, and with that also include a letter from Infectious disease doctor treating you outlining your treatment plan and how long it will take.

Don’t decline your ITA..you continue the process. I ended up declining my ITA because of the pain and couldn’t do any paper work.

I’m waiting for an ITA now..

Thank you so much for your explanation. As long as my disease wont disqualify me from EE, I think I will take it. Thanks a lot!!

 

[canuck78]

Don’t worry. Let public health know and they will guide you about the treatment. As far as immigration is concerned, get a letter from the doctor treating you and using the web form/contact agent, let IRCC know of your treatment. Gather all the documents as usual. What they usually do in ongoing TB cases is keeping your file on hold. You do everything you need to do, let the physician pass your medical reports to CIC, and with that also include a letter from Infectious disease doctor treating you outlining your treatment plan and how long it will take.

Don’t decline your ITA..you continue the process. I ended up declining my ITA because of the pain and couldn’t do any paper work.

I’m waiting for an ITA now..

You don’t contact public health out of the blue. When you do your medical you must advise the panel doctor that you are undergoing treatment for TB. You will undergo TB testing anyways so you’ll save money by delaying your testing until after you’ve finished your treatment. Once in Canada you will likely be under medical surveillance and will be directed to contact public health once you land. Canada has very low rates of TB and Canada wants to keep it that way so they take TB very seriously. As long as you finish your treatment and are TB free you should be fine. I would anticipate longer processing time than 6 months.

 

[coolgal]

You don’t contact public health out of the blue. When you do your medical you must advise the panel doctor that you are undergoing treatment for TB. You will undergo TB testing anyways so you’ll save money by delaying your testing until after you’ve finished your treatment. Once in Canada you will likely be under medical surveillance and will be directed to contact public health once you land. Canada has very low rates of TB and Canada wants to keep it that way so they take TB very seriously. As long as you finish your treatment and are TB free you should be fine. I would anticipate longer processing time than 6 months.

I thought the applicant was inland. One can directly call public health and let them know. The healthcare system here is crazy. Public health will visit you, collect some samples and will also fix an appointment to begin treatment. Anyway, he's outland, so there's no need to contact them, never the less CIC will.

 

[canuck78]

I thought the applicant was inland. One can directly call public health and let them know. The healthcare system here is crazy. Public health will visit you, collect some samples and will also fix an appointment to begin treatment. Anyway, he's outland, so there's no need to contact them, never the less CIC will.

Public health usually doesn’t visit you at home. You usually go and see them.

 

[coolgal]

Public health usually doesn’t visit you at home. You usually go and see them.

Actually the public health nurse drives home or any convenient place. They need to drop and pick samples(over a 2 day period). They then arrange for daily meets in person or tele-conference once meds are started. Abdominal is the worst..only after surgery they decide to start meds.

 

[canuck78]

Actually the public health nurse drives home or any convenient place. They need to drop and pick samples(over a 2 day period). They then arrange for daily meets in person or tele-conference once meds are started. Abdominal is the worst..only after surgery they decide to start meds.

Maybe in your city. There are very few cases of TB in Canada except in certain populations since it is heavily screened for. Most TB cases are in refugees, homeless or people living on reserves.

 

[coolgal]

Maybe in your city. There are very few cases of TB in Canada except in certain populations since it is heavily screened for. Most TB cases are in refugees, homeless or people living on reserves.

Most people have latent TB(people pass the immigration screening easily). Only 25% of the latent cases turn active and that too in immuno-compromised individuals. Even diabetes can turn latent tb into active tb. Don't be surprised if someone drives a Merc and is being treated for TB. It's a popular misconception that TB only affects refugees, homeless and others.

It's sad that public health sucks in your city. Refugees, homeless and reserve populations are humans too, and are not in control of their situations completely. I know the sad state of affairs concerning universal healthcare here, UK is worst. People think universal healthcare is the best..No wonder that topic never wins in US elections.

 

[gavinchan]

You don’t contact public health out of the blue. When you do your medical you must advise the panel doctor that you are undergoing treatment for TB. You will undergo TB testing anyways so you’ll save money by delaying your testing until after you’ve finished your treatment. Once in Canada you will likely be under medical surveillance and will be directed to contact public health once you land. Canada has very low rates of TB and Canada wants to keep it that way so they take TB very seriously. As long as you finish your treatment and are TB free you should be fine. I would anticipate longer processing time than 6 months.

Thank you for your information. Yes, I am an outland application from China.

I thought the applicant was inland. One can directly call public health and let them know. The healthcare system here is crazy. Public health will visit you, collect some samples and will also fix an appointment to begin treatment. Anyway, he's outland, so there's no need to contact them, never the less CIC will.

Thank you all for your information. Yes, I am an outland application from China. Do you think I should contact CIC through web form to let them know my situation before I choose to continue with my application? Or contact them when I will be taking the medical exam, like sending in a letter so they can consider my case along with the reports or documents from the doctor.

 

[coolgal]

Thank you for your information. Yes, I am an outland application from China.

Thank you all for your information. Yes, I am an outland application from China. Do you think I should contact CIC through web form to let them know my situation before I choose to continue with my application? Or contact them when I will be taking the medical exam, like sending in a letter so they can consider my case along with the reports or documents from the doctor.

Do you already have an infectious disease doctor ? If yes, ask him/her to draft a letter to CIC outlining the treatment plan and duration. Keep the letter with you/ or ask them to fax it to the CIC physician. Now when you go for your medicals let the CIC physician know your medical situation-show him that letter too so that he drafts his report accordingly, he may want to keep a copy for himself too. During that time, it doesn't hurt to also fill out the web-form and attach your tb doctors letter. The CIC physicians letter has more value in this case, but you need to present your case--put everything out there. The more they see of it, the more they understand what's going on. The CIC physicians deal with these things all the time..so don't worry. Just do it like you'd do if you didn't have TB but get the letters. After your treatment, again you may need to go to the same CIC physician where he will submit an updated report saying you have completed your treatment and are tb free. Some people have got the PPR within a week of transmitting that updated medical. They do all the other checks in the meanwhile. So, get going with the paperwork. I guess you'll have 90 days now vs the 60 earlier.

 

[canuck78]

Thank you for your information. Yes, I am an outland application from China.

Thank you all for your information. Yes, I am an outland application from China. Do you think I should contact CIC through web form to let them know my situation before I choose to continue with my application? Or contact them when I will be taking the medical exam, like sending in a letter so they can consider my case along with the reports or documents from the doctor.

Panel physician is fine. You should bring your treatment information to your medical.