I put a suit and tie on. Such a rare sight - I was receiving compliments pretty much all day. But apart from pleasing many of the folks at HQ, it had little effect at the Ministry of Health. Here’s what happened.

14 Days to go…

It’s 7^th November. Sister Aster (our senior clinic nurse), Ato Fikre (from the SIM Ethiopia government relations department) and I set off to try to persuade the Ministry of Health to allow us to continue outsourcing our lab tests and to renew the clinic licence so we can carry on working and so I can continue to be in the country legally. It was an interesting journey across town in rush hour traffic in a vehicle that would stall every time Fikre took his foot off the accelerator. We arrive at a multi-storey office building with minimal parking in front. We squeeze into a space, fully aware that when we eventually emerge there would be another complete row of cars blocking us in.

The lift doesn’t work. Up the stairs we go – 7 floors. The office has 12 desks, four of which are manned and is thronging with mostly young people wanting to renew their licences for whatever branch of healthcare they work in. The lady we need to see isn’t there – her husband died yesterday so she will not be coming in. Her second-in-command is also absent although no-one knows why. Someone Sister Aster knows and trained with is very welcoming but can’t help us. The man she had given our pleading letter to is also absent. Time ticks by. Eventually after a phone call or two Mr Hussain arrives. He can’t find the letter Sister Aster had handed him in person a while ago, but he has a reply saying we cannot be relicensed if we don’t have a laboratory on site. He eventually finds our original letter on another floor of the building, which he gives us back. We have to queue at another office (labelled “Archiving”) to have his reply letter stamped - so it’s official. We try to find a superior. She’s at a three-day meeting elsewhere, so we leave with only a refusal letter in hand (with nice stamps on though), planning to come back in three days to see the superior.

Out the front true to form our car is blocked in. The guard has a list of mobile numbers of the people parked behind us who are all scattered around somewhere inside the 12-floor office building. He phones. We wait. 10 minutes later someone turns up and moves the wrong car. More phone calls. More waiting. At last we are unblocked and can return to HQ to plan our next move. We’ll try to talk to and hopefully meet the superior.

11 Days to go…

Thursday 10^th November. Besuited once again in case we can go back to the 7^th floor, and Sister Aster is phoning the superior’s office repeatedly and getting repeatedly put off by different people with different excuses. When they start immediately hanging up whenever she phones we realise we will be getting nowhere with our current plan. Aster phones the inspector who came a couple of weeks ago – the sensible one. She tells us she will help us and gives Aster a number for me to phone her back at 5pm, as she wants to talk to me. Encouraged, we work through the day and at 5pm I call. It’s a wrong number. Aster tries – wrong number. We’ll try her office tomorrow.

10 Days to go…

Friday morning and Sister Aster phones the inspector’s office while I’m having an Amharic lesson. The inspector tells us there may be a change in the rules in the next few months, allowing staff clinics like ours to be more flexible; until then we will need to set up a lab. Really? Yes, really. She tells us our broken microscope and non-functioning centrifuge are adequate equipment – we just need to employ a lab technician. Immediately.

I know a lab technician at church who has equipment and may be available. I know his first name but I don’t know how to contact him. Sister Aster talks to Sophie; Sophie calls Pastor Girma; Pastor Girma contacts the technician who phones Sister Aster who arranges for him to visit us this afternoon. He comes to visit. He’s fully employed so we can’t take him on, but he knows another lab technician who’s free so he’ll put us in touch with her – on Monday.

7 Days to go…

Monday 14^th November. The licence, my resident’s ID and work permit all expire in exactly a week. We talk a lot with SIM Ethiopia’s HR manager who will employ a lab technician for us for three months while we wait for the rules to be changed. We discuss the salary – we’ll need to increase clinic fees to cover the cost of employing someone we neither need nor want, for her to do, well, nothing. We contact the lab technician – she can come tomorrow.

6 Days to go…

Tuesday 15^th November. Whilst grandchild no. 3 celebrates his second birthday in England with the spinning top we have sent via Amazon, we successfully engage a lab technician – Mahelet; a new graduate with a diploma and a professional registration. We tell the inspector. She clarifies that as the requirements for a “Medium Clinic” include two lab technicians we can only be approved as “partially met”. A bit like the requirement to have a minimum of 12 rooms – we only have 8 so they ticked “partially met” (think about that for a moment…)

5 Days to go…

While Tigist and I do our morning clinic at Bingham Sister Aster and Ato Fikre head off to the Ministry of Health again clutching all sorts of letters and bits of paper confirming the fact that we have a lab technician. They get their car blocked in, head up the now functional lift (is this a good omen?) and 2 or 3 hours later are told that as we have now scored over 80% on the “Medium Clinic Assessment Checklist” (by employing a lab technician and having some kit, albeit non-functional), we can have a licence, but where’s Dr Phil and his photo? They need to see both. In her inimitable and irresistible way Sister Aster tells them in no uncertain terms I was there last week when they could clearly see me. They cave in, but where’s the photo? A phone call to HQ confirms there is a photo of me on file, so as fast as she can Konjit (who has been telling me all along not to worry because God is faithful) leaps into a taxi and ferries the photo half way across the city into the waiting hands of the person with the stamps (you have no idea how important they are) who prints a green A4 sheet, attaches the photo and stamps it. Job done!

So, we have a clinic licence and now Konjit can get on with renewing my work permit and resident’s ID.

There’s a tiny problem however.

The room in the clinic we can label a “laboratory” is, the inspector says, too narrow. We will therefore have to turn our kitchen/rest room (something else we are required to have) into a laboratory. Oh, and in 15 days (see here) they will come and inspect. So we’ll put our broken microscope and centrifuge into the kitchen, install poor Mahelet in there, and apparently they will be satisfied. With a bit of luck they’ll leave us alone for another year.

So instead of last year’s amber one I now have a green licence on the wall. Konjit was right – God is faithful. Many people have been praying for us, and an answer to prayer is an answer to prayer however bizarre the means. Onwards and upwards!