MissX, ostensibly all expats in Qatar are here to work and those over a certain retirement age are obviously not going to do so, hence the age restriction. It is also true that the elderly population uses significantly more health care and other resources than a younger, working age group. I realize that bibo can vouch for his father's care and health coverage (although I'm not sure that Qatar has the means to collect a third-party reimbursement from another country) but the rules were not made for bibo's father but for the population in general. Bibo's dad just got caught in one of those inflexible laws. All of our countries of origin have them.
Mandi