Wednesday, October 19, 2005

The maid and the doctor

I took our maid today to the doctor. Both her hands were inflamed because of the use of soap. When the doctor saw her, he gasped and said bluntly “What happened to you? What have you done to yourself?!” I didn’t like the way he uttered those words. It sounded like an accusation. Of course she doesn’t understand Arabic so I explained to him in defense!

I despised the doctor for the way he treated her. He ruined the picture I had in mind last time I checked with him when he was surprised at my age. He thought I was twelve years younger and that I entered with another’s civil ID! It was the best compliment I got this year.

Doctors here don’t treat domestic manpower well. For this reason a friend of mine took her maid to a private hospital just to get a proper treatment; a thing that didn’t work there either. To the contrary, they were surprised at how come she was paying for her treatment while she can get it for free. In the end, my friend herself found out what her maid suffered from by guessing because the maid had the same symptoms my friend had one day. And guess what? It turned out to be a serious disease that caused sever pain.

This ill treatment reached the extent that once our maid fell unconscious and when the paramedics arrived they did nothing and told us that she must be pretending. They wouldn’t even touch her or carry her until they finally realized that she was really unconscious! What they did was to use one of our perfumes and when it didn’t work they carried her to hospital with the help of our other maid! Yeah, two men couldn’t carry her alone although she wasn’t fat.

10 comments:

Ben Rivard said...

I have been in Kuwait for 6 years and have witnessed so much abuse against domestic workers. Reading your post I was surprised, I could actually feel your concern for your maid. Nowadays, genuinely nice people are not so easy to find. Thank you for caring.

don_veto said...

I took my maid once to the doctor. I did not go in with her cause I did not want to get involved if it was some feminine problem. My maid later came out with a prescription for panadol even though she was complaining of something more serious.

So I took her in again, this time with me accompanying her. It was a lady Dr. and I turned on the charm on Ms Dr. My maid got 1st class treatment, blood test, blood pressure test, different samples, the works.

Gigi said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gigi said...

Oh my GOD!!!!!!
Doctors??!

Flamingoliya and Don_Veto... Those stories are shocking and sad! I'm very upset about this :((

I was always under the impression that the people who treated their domestic helpers carelessly were among the 'uneducated classes'.

Gigi, disappointedly

Delicately Realistic said...

Makes me sad reading that. :(

Sorry you guys.

I'll change it wallah I will.

3ad I've seen the opposite of that so many times before.

A3sab said...

I personally take my maid to private clinics if it seems serious and still i make sure that i am with her.
speaking about paramedics:twice my brother and I had to carry mom on the stretcher from inside the house to the ambulance the assholes couldn't do it... excuse the language but I reached a point where I was screaming from the top of my head at them. WE were telling THEM what to do..they are soooo useless.

Peach said...

That is just so pathetically sad! :/

Flamingoliya said...

Ben Rivard
thank you so much for your nice words. there are people who care, but like always, bad people ruin the picture.

Donveto
that's another sad story :/ thank you for sharing.

Gigi
no dear :/ you'll be surprised that education has nothing to do with how their brains work. position, power, education can delude us.

DR
I wish you can wallah!
yes, i'm sure not all docs are like that ;)

A3sab
that's so sad! especially when it happens to someone so close like your mom. add to that her age. paramedics know nothing. they seem to be just drivers with no experience. i was expecting to get a 911 service. very shocking when you see the real picture.
sorry this happened to your mom. allah lay7oojna lehom enshalla.

Peach
it is wallah :/

جنة الحواس said...

All I can say is that they are mean ... 7adhum 7aqeereen the problem is that it's not only doctors .. There are many ppl who treat their maids really badly ..

Flamingoliya said...

Broke
allah yakfeenna sharhom, oo allah yahdeehom :/