"Ease the gray-haired traveler's path, help him if only a little.
One day you too will understand what old age means."
Nasir Khusraw
Processing Times
A German embassy is required to process a family-reunification application within a reasonable time — an unjustified delay can be challenged through an action for failure to act (Untätigkeitsklage).
The decision to emigrate to another country is driven by a wide range of circumstances and motives — from wanting a change of scenery or job, starting one's own business, or pursuing higher or further education at a prestigious university, to the need to leave one's home country because of war or because a person urgently needs help that cannot be provided at home. In our legal practice, we have repeatedly encountered situations where adult children move to Germany, leaving elderly parents behind. In some cases this is not a problem, provided the parents are healthy enough to look after themselves, or other adult children or relatives remain in the home country to care for them. But what should elderly people do if they are left entirely alone back home, and serious health problems force them to seek qualified medical care that, unfortunately, is not always available at the nearest local clinic? Many of our readers already know that, fortunately, truly hopeless situations are rare in life — especially once a professional takes charge. German law — specifically the Residence Act (Aufenthaltsgesetz — AufenthG) — contains ample legal tools for resolving precisely this kind of problem.
In some cases, it is possible to obtain a German residence permit on humanitarian grounds for people who need, say, medical treatment in Germany, even when they lack sufficient funds for such treatment, or for people whose treatment cannot, for various reasons, be provided in their own country. These reasons may even be purely economic, including a lack of funds for treatment at home. This is not the same as, say, relatives living in Germany wanting to bring an elderly parent to live with them who is basically healthy but needs constant care — in such cases, a residence permit can be obtained not on humanitarian grounds but on the special grounds of family reunification. Humanitarian grounds apply where continued residence in the home country poses a threat to life and health, and a move to Germany can eliminate or prevent that danger. Obtaining a residence permit on humanitarian grounds is governed by § 25 of the Aufenthaltsgesetz. When it comes to medical care in Germany, both tourists visiting the country for a short period and people moving to Germany permanently are required to arrange statutory or private health insurance. Despite reasonably clear statutory rules on this point, problems and odd situations still arise in practice.
To resolve, competently and effectively, the difficulties that can arise both in obtaining the relevant residence permit and in arranging health insurance, it makes sense to consult a professional attorney with extensive experience dealing with both immigration authorities and insurance companies in good time. In this article, we describe one case from our varied legal practice involving the resolution of a residence-permit and statutory health-insurance issue after a residence permit had already been granted in Germany.
A middle-aged woman — let's call her Olga — came to our firm with a problem involving arranging health insurance for her elderly mother. Our client's mother — let's call her Viktoria — had moved to Germany about a year earlier from a small town in the Omsk region. To be honest, Viktoria had had no intention of leaving her hometown and country in her old age, had circumstances not intervened. A year earlier, her husband had passed away — a heavy blow for Viktoria. She could not come to terms with being alone, stayed at home almost all the time, and refused to see doctors. This most likely aggravated her already troublesome chronic conditions — her blood pressure kept spiking, her heart "acted up," not to mention long-standing, neglected problems with her kidneys and urinary system. Her two adult daughters had long since lived abroad — the younger one, Olga, in Germany, and the elder in the United States. Olga once again came to visit her mother with her children for two weeks during the summer holidays. Realizing that her mother's condition left much to be desired and that the question of caring for her needed to be resolved without delay, the daughter began seriously discussing with her mother the idea of moving to Germany. After several rounds of negotiation and having secured Viktoria's agreement, our client, upon returning to Germany, began seriously looking into the possibility of obtaining a residence permit for her mother, who needed ongoing care.
Olga therefore first came to our firm regarding the legal support needed to obtain a residence permit for Viktoria.
As part of this case, our firm's attorney advised Olga and helped gather the supporting documents. He presented evidence that obtaining a residence permit on humanitarian grounds under § 25(5) of the Residence Act (Aufenthaltsgesetz — AufenthG) was necessary to eliminate the existing risks to the elderly woman's life.
The main arguments that led to the application for the residence permit being granted were as follows:
Viktoria was in a very serious condition, with no prognosis for improvement;
her continued presence in her home country without constant care posed a significant risk to her life;
the quality treatment available in Germany could not be provided in Russia; and finally,
the elderly woman's daughter lived in Germany, ready and willing to care for her. She alone could provide her mother with the necessary care and financial support.
As a result of this application, Viktoria was first issued the corresponding national visa, and later a residence permit in Germany valid for seven months. Olga brought her mother to Germany and immediately turned to the further practicalities of settling her there. One of the first and most important issues was arranging health insurance. Unfortunately, the statutory insurance funds refused to conclude a policy because the residence permit was valid for less than 12 months. For this reason, during her first months in Germany, Viktoria had to rely on a private insurance company that offers such services to people temporarily residing in the country.
Later, since there was no improvement in the woman's health and her return to her home country continued to pose a significant risk to her health and life, our firm's attorney successfully obtained an extension of the residence permit for a further three years. When it was issued, the residence permit was annotated to note that responsibility for the elderly woman's financial support rested entirely with her daughter, who lives in Germany. Having obtained the new residence permit, Olga once again approached a statutory health insurance fund, hoping to properly insure her mother. Surprisingly, our client was refused once again, because the insurance company's representatives interpreted the existing residence permit as a residence authorization conditioned on the daughter's financial support. At the same time, when trying to insure Viktoria with private insurers, Olga was refused everywhere because of the age and health problems of the person to be insured. Olga therefore came back to us, asking the attorney handling her case to help find a way out of this vicious circle. On the one hand, health insurance is a mandatory condition for long-term residence in the country. On the other hand, statutory insurance could not be obtained because of the specific type of residence permit she held.
Defending the interests of his client and her elderly mother, our attorney applied to the immigration authority (Ausländerbehörde) for a clarifying letter to accompany the existing residence permit, stating that it had been issued under § 25(5) of the Aufenthaltsgesetz on humanitarian grounds due to the applicant's state of health. The financial support provided by the daughter to whom Viktoria had moved was an obligation that had to be fulfilled to ensure the woman's continued residence in the country — but the issuance of the residence permit itself did not depend on the sufficiency of funds to support Viktoria, but rather on her state of health and her need for ongoing care. Just as we had rightly expected, once this clarifying certificate was obtained from the Ausländerbehörde and presented to the insurance company, the insurance contract was duly concluded, and the elderly woman was finally able to make use of medical services without further difficulty.
We wish our readers that, even with every mandatory and supplementary insurance policy in place, they rarely need to use them, and mostly only for preventive care. As for us — a team of qualified professionals with more than a few dozen successfully resolved cases to our name — we remain at the service of anyone who needs legal help, even with the most complex matters within the scope of German law.
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