Polyclinic

Volos, provincial capital of Magnesia, as I have mentioned before, is brimming over with doctors. My experience of Greek culture suggests to me that as a general rule, the Greek people do not believe in a bargain – you get what you pay for, although of course you could be over-charged. Therefore doctors which come free on the state must be rubbish and private doctors you have to pay must be better. As a general rule of thumb you could probably expect to pay in the region of 50€ for a private consultation. From here the return fare to Volos is in the region of 80€, making a trip to a private consultant a costly day out.

When austerity was introduced, one of the first things to go was small local tax offices, very possibly because a large number of them were corrupt. And when austerity began to bite hard, one of the first things islanders gave up was costly trips to the mainland to see private consultants, unless absolutely essential. Doctors on the mainland began to realise that they could travel to an island for one evening or weekend per month and retain their client-base without tremendous cost to themselves, all they required was a fully equipped consulting room.

So a smart couple took over the old tax office and converted it to specialist consulting rooms and now we have a whole spectrum of medical professionals visit us on a regular rotating basis. Some days there are a variety of different consultants in at once, so we might have the gynaecologist in on the same day as the ophthalmologist, or the ear nose and throat guy in on the same day as the rheumatologist, but in a super-smart move, the mammogram team get the place to themselves one Sunday a month. Nobody is going to walk in wanting their verruca seen to, we're all there for the same thing, so let's make it a women-only party! There's pink ribbons and liqueurs and cake and if you have to get your tits in a wringer, I can't think of a nicer way to experience that.