My Visit To The Saudi Medical Clinc

It was that time of year once again when I had to get the Pap’s Smear and Mammogram taken care of. No easy task out here in Saudi land. We have a clinic here on our compound, but there is no fancy x-ray machine for Mammograms at this clinic. The procedure is to go to our clinic, see the female doctor, and she will write out the request order for me to take to the King Faisal Teaching Hospital in the city. There I get all x-rays and treatment that the compound clinic can not do and I get it all for free.
I settled down in the ladies waiting room to wait to see the compound doctor in our clinic. What a stark room to wait in. About 7 other women were also waiting, all draped totally in black with faces veiled. There were a couple women with their maids who were tending the little children. On one wall was nailed a huge magazine rack, totally empty except for one copy of the Koran. No one had a book or anything to read, except me. I always travel with a book. This is not a reading society, except for tiny pocket-sized Korans/prayer books that the locals have. In clinics and hospitals or anywhere where locals are waiting, no one is EVER reading anything. Sometimes I see one or two reading their little prayer books, but usually they all just sit and stare, waiting to be called or answering cell phones. In our clinic there are no pictures on the wall or any decorations to make this waiting pleasant at all. Chairs are just lined along the walls in very ridged formation.
I did get my Pap’s test done, but only because I insisted. According to this doctor, I am too old to need one. According to my Internet studies, that is not the case. I have had to insist on them for the last couple of years here. Anyway, she signed the two necessary forms, for my mammogram at the hospital and I was finally done, after well over 2 hours.
Jim then drove me to the hospital in the city where I was to set up the x-ray appointment. Short wait there. I turned in my papers of request to the veiled lady x-ray technician. She looked them over, came back to me and said, “Sorry, we can not make the appointment, the doctor at KFUPM did not write the ‘reason’ for the x-ray.” She then handed back these 2 full pages of information and request. My melt-down started. No WAY was I going to meekly have Jim drive me all the way back to the university, wait another 2 hr. to see the doctor at the clinic again, so she could write, “annual exam” across a page and then drive all the way back into town to get this appointment. We really do risk our lives every time we drive off compound due to horrifically dangerous drivers here.
Still maintaining control, of sorts, and trying not to raise my voice too high, I asked her to just write “annual exam” across the page. NOPE, couldn’t do that, she is not the doctor. I told her this was my eighth visit for such an exam as their records will show. NOPE, makes no difference. There was no way they could call the clinic doctor and get this request over the phone. OK, I was loosing it! I asked her for a pen. She had none; I then went through the doors into the area where I was not to go and asked for a pen from a rather stunned gentleman technician standing there. He gave me his pen and I wrote, ANNUAL EXAM across the page, returned the pen, went back to the veiled lady technician and said, “Look, there it is, “Annual Exam”! Now, I would like to make the appointment. I got the appointment, and a couple of days later I had the x-ray.