Screenshot from the Sydney Morning Herald
After a lengthy squabble with the Australian government, an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) who nurses Australia’s oldest living Holocaust survivor returned to the Philippines, her dilemma over her visa finally resolved.
Elenita ‘Lenie’ Fernandez, 43, a caregiver in Australia since 2007, was granted a special visa by the Australian government to visit the country to celebrate her daughter’s 18th birthday.
“We can confirm that the visa has been issued but can comment no further,” a spokesperson for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton answered the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).
On April 14 (Thursday), Fernandez, together with an attorney, rushed to the Department of Immigration office in neighboring Sydney suburb, Parramatta, and was given a special visa. She flew to Manila on April 17 (Friday) and was reunited with her daughter Manlyn Mae and son Manuel Cesar, 16.
Her visa issue escalated through media reports and an online petition with 18,000 signatures.
She arrived on a tourist visa nine years ago to care for Helen Roberts. Upon her death in 2008, she fulfilled Helen’s dying wish to care for her husband Richard Roberts, a 103-year-old Austrian who endured Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps before migrating to Australia in 1938.
If she chose to leave Australia without the special visa, she might not re-enter Australia to tend to Roberts at his home in Vaucluse, a suburban area in Sydney. Another option was for her to apply for a new visa for her to prolong her work with Roberts but not visit the Philippines.
She appealed in 2015 for her to be granted permission to stay for two weeks in the Philippines and return in May this year.
Roberts, who is currently suffering from a fragile heart and diabetes, narrated to JTA, “She (Fernandez) ran the house, including bringing people in to help, some of whom shopped for the household.”
Before Fernandez left for the country, she assigned two temporary caregivers to look after Roberts. Gianna Francesca Catolico, INQUIRER.net