Coming to work in Tanzania on a voluntary basis has proved to
be considerably more challenging logistically than we had first expected. A
surgeon and a GP offering to come and work for free? You would have thought
that the process would be made as easy as possible, that a ‘red carpet’ might even
be rolled out to welcome and lure us into staying for as long as possible. Ha!
It sometimes seems that the opposite approach has been taken. The processes are
complicated. And expensive (for example I have subsequently found out that we
have had to pay fifteen times that of a local doctor in professional
registration fees – and we’re not even earning any money here!). The red tape
is prohibitive and I worry greatly that it will (and probably does) put off
other people from doing the same sort of things as us.
But we made it here and are so glad that we persevered.
Today we had to go to Tanga to get our Visas extended. I won’t bore with the
details, but this has been on the agenda since we arrived. All in hand I was
informed. But of course the expiry date crept closer and closer and my enquires
became more persistent. They expire next week and I finally persuaded the team
to take us to get them renewed. I was assured that it was a simple process and
a formality, but I was very right to be sceptical. Those looks that you get from
officials sometimes say so much more than words ever could. There have been
many changes to the processes and laws here over the last few years I am told,
which has made what we are doing harder to achieve. There was a lot of waiting
around, but the local immigration officer was sympathetic to our cause and
supports our extension. Unfortunately, this can only be for one month at a time
(so we will have to return twice more) and today the person that we would need
to actually complete the paperwork was absent. So we will return tomorrow.
Fingers crossed it works out, otherwise we will be leaving in a hurry!
My reaction to all this is threefold. Firstly, whilst it
seems bonkers, there is absolutely no point in letting it ‘get to you’. We took
some good books to read and just went with the flow. I predicted it would be
far from straight forward, so we were somewhat prepared at least. Secondly, it
is actually quite an interesting insight into things. The complexities and
detail of the various visas available is eye-opening (or perhaps it was the exemptions
available for visas, I got quite confused). The rquired documents was mindboggling.
Certainly, I feel that we have had another authentic African experience – and one
that we’ve paid quite a lot of money for so perhaps we should enjoy it?! Finally
however, I am even more resolute to try and meet with some of the leading
stakeholders in such processes. I feel it is absolutely crazy to actively
discourage (for that is what it overwhelmingly feels like) highly skilled visitors
who wish to help train the local workforce in such a way that could rapidly
raise the quality of healthcare. I absolutely support that comprehensive
processes are in place to regulate such activity, but perhaps not like this.
Just give up and come home I hear you say? Certainly an
option, but at the end of the day it is the patients that will suffer the most.
So we will persevere and hope that we can adequately jump through the hoops to
emerge successful.
We arrived back in Muheza late in the afternoon. To my
delight (that might be said slightly tongue in cheek) there were a handful of patients
that had been saved for my special review in outpatients. A victim of my own
success?!
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