Exam for the fit

I am a retired military officer. I have a booklet-type driving licence issued to me some 42 years ago. I decided to get it converted to a modern card-type licence, for which I visited the Motorway Police office in Islamabad. After paying the fee, I was shown into a room for a medical examination. The person there, without subjecting me to a preliminary medical test, told me to go to PIMS for the examination.

The visit to PIMS was an eye-opener. I was required to get myself examined by at least three medical specialists, and the queues before each one of them were hundreds of patients long. I was probably the fittest person at the hospital, yet I was overburdening an already overburdened hospital to meet a bureaucratic requirement. The long queues bogged me down and I gave up the idea of getting a driving licence. The fee paid is unlikely to be refunded by the Motorway Police.

Shabbir Ahmad

Islamabad