Our medical appointments were scheduled for one week ahead at 1.30pm and 1.45pm so this meant that I had to take the day off from work. I rang all the clients that I was due to visit on that day and they were all very understanding and willing to make new arrangements for their cleaning to be done and they all wished me well with the medicals.
From the Internet I had found out exactly where the office we were supposed to attend was. Luckily it was not far from the Central railway station so we only had a short walk. We arrived there about five minutes before the time of our appointment and went up to the fifth floor in the lift. Medibank, who are the company who carries out all the medical tests for the government have the whole top floor of the building so when you take the lift and press button 5 the doors open directly into their waiting rooms. It was a very large room full of people. I took one look and thought we would be there for ages, my heart sank. Most of them were obviously foreigners, Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian, Indonesian, with a few that looked Greek, Italian or French and one or two that just had that very British look. We joined the queue at the counter feeling glad that we had at least downloaded our forms from the Internet and that they were already filled in. There were six young ladies dealing with the queue so it went quite quickly and it was not long before it was our turn. The attractive young lady who dealt with us looked like a Filipino and when Jonny asked if it was always as busy as this she said “you should have been here at 11 o’clock, it has quietened down now” She checked our passports, took our photographs, completed the forms and relieved us of our $556. She answered all our questions and assured us that it would not take too long for us to be attended to. Then she told us to take a seat and that we would be called soon. And she was right - we sat for about five minutes watching people being called into the different doors that led off the reception room and then it was our turn. A young African nurse called us and we followed her to a back room where she weighed us and measured us. She did and eye test and looked into our ears. Then she asked us to produce a urine sample and ushered us back into the waiting room. After another short wait we were called into a different side room. There we were told by an Irish girl to remove our jewellery and tops and put on a black gown. An Indian man called us and x-rayed our chests. Back once again to the waiting room and after a short while we were called by a Chinese nurse who took our blood and sent us back to our seats. Then came the longest wait, about 15 mins as we waited for the doctor. It was amusing to hear the people being called, names like Bing Ling Cho and Wong Tang. The doctor who examined us was a young Australian lady. Well I expect that all the staff were Australians but they certainly had different ethnic backgrounds, what we call a multi ethnic society. The doctor took our blood pressure, listened to our chests, peered into our eyes, ears and mouth and tested our reflexes. She was very friendly and explained anything that we wanted to know. She said that everything was fine, she did say my blood pressure was a little higher than Jonny's which surprised me as I have always had low blood pressure but she assured me that it was within their parameters so not to be concerned about it. So after 1 ½ hours it was all over and we were out on the street again.
It was all a bit like a sausage factory but admittedly a very efficient sausage factory – everyone knowing their job and getting on with it. It can’t be very easy to have to deal with so many people during the day and still remain smiling and friendly but they managed it.
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