Treasure Island (jumping through hoops)

Once upon a time, long ago, Spouseman and I were invited to his works Christmas do. We all met up at a pub somewhere near Fleet Street where we were given tube tickets and divided into teams. Each team was given a Polaroid camera and a set of clues. We then spent a happy couple of hours charging round the circle line performing tasks and solving puzzles. Only when the puzzles were solved did we have the name and address of the venue at which the party was to be held. The first team to arrive was awarded maximum points but then points were deducted for failed tasks. Therefore the first team to arrive, who had done nothing but hang around discreetly and then follow the organisers to the venue were docked all of their points because they did not have a Polaroid photograph of a pigeon with a motorcycle at Paddington Station and neither did they know the name of the doctor who had a surgery at number whatever Tiddly-om-pom Street.

And this is how Greek bureaucracy works, it is a treasure hunt and you had better enjoy it because otherwise you will become cross and frustrated. It doesn't matter if you getting a building permit, registering a business or applying to join the National Insurance Scheme, all will involve going to office A to collect paper 1, taking paper 1 to office B to have it stamped, taking stamped paper 1 to office C, collecting paper 2 and returning that to office A. The venues will all be in the furthest corners of any city and the office hours will be such that it is a physical impossibility to achieve all tasks in a single day. As an islander that means that you either have to spend a night in a hotel or return home to begin again the following day (clue: the hotel is the cheaper option). Greek bureaucracy is deliberately loaded against islanders and for that reason up until very recently VAT on the islands has been at a lower rate than on the mainland, just to even up the score a little.

And so it is that having got our building permit, built our houses, registered our cottage as a Greek business and thus been eligible to join the Greek National Insurance Scheme that we are now eligible for subsidised healthcare. Hurrah! Spouseman's recent treatment on the mainland has involved phenomenal amounts of to-ing and fro-ing on ferries and trains and buses and we were thrilled to be told that all of these expenses can be claimed back. His doctor gave him paper 1 which was a list of all his treatment days and I assembled his collection of tickets as well as producing a spreadsheet of all the expenses on a day by day basis. These were all put together in an envelope and taken to the local representative of the Farmers National Insurance Organisation because as you may already know, we are classed as farmers and so that is the scheme for which we have membership. The representative phoned the head office and was asked why his treatment had been in Larisa and not Volos.

The Sporades Islands are within the prefecture of Magnisia who's capital City is Volos. Magnisia is in the region of Thessaly. Thessaly comprises four prefectures; Magnisia, Larisa, Karditsa and Trikala. Larisa is the capital city of the entire region. The region of Thessaly is predominantly agricultural and so I would imagine that a high proportion of its population are farmers with membership of the Farmers National Insurance Organisation.

Spouseman's treatment has been radiotherapy and there is no radiotherapy machine in Volos, the closest such machine is in Larisa, and I would have expected the Farmers National Insurance Organisation to be very well aware of that fact. Be that as it may, the claim cannot proceed until we have a letter from Volos hospital to explain that they were unable to provide the required treatment. There must be thousands of identical letters on file, but one has to have one's own personal letter in one's own personal file before one can begin to make a claim. Throw a six to start.

Extra; of course not everyone wants to jump through hoops.

Separately, it was lovely to have a blipmeet in Skop Town today with MartinDawe and his wife Anne. Many thanks for the coffee! :-)