Maldivians hate Pakistani Doctors.

There is an interesting piece of information about any doctor from Pakistan who is here already or planning to come to work here in future.

Dear Pakistani Fellows, with all due respect towards you and you education and your behavior in general and your etiquettes and mannerism, it looks like that you entire being is not very well tolerated & ingested by Maldivian palate & intestine. I am an Indian but I do have at least 5 – 6 close doctor friends with whom I have been professionally associated from time to time since last 6 years. I know other 5-6 from Pakistan who are in a cordial relationship with me. Without any feelings of India Vs Pakistan, we have been working and bailing out each other from any type of condition arising in our vicinity. There are two doctors from Pakistan who studied with me and eventually I myself arranged work permits for them from here. So, kindly don’t take my word in any way of misguided feelings. Pardon me for the grammar and punctuations or spellings used in this article. I am trying my best to use their (Maldivian’s) words, style & phonetics.

      I will provide you all a general study of the behavior pattern of Maldivians towards Pakistani Nationals, Doctors included.

1.   ‘PAKEEZ’, as they call Pakistani nationals here, are not gudd muslims. Pakeez are even drinking alcohol so they don’t qualify for being gudd muslims anyway. (God only knows from where this common notion is coming as Alcohol is not at all available over the civilian islands. Yes, I can’t tell about the local brewing from coconut water and sugar fermentation kind of alcohol).

2.   Pakeez are showing as if they obey Guruaan (Quran is called Guruaan here) but they are actually not. They don’t pray as we pray.

3.   ‘Pakistani doctors dunnow much about medicine. Not gudd.’ This may be their own experiences or whatever but this is a general perception.

They mean that Pakistan is a disturbed country with not enough in job salaries for their doctors, so, they come here for the sake of money only. I have discussed this with everyone who calls Pakistani Doctors bad as I simply wanted to know the reason. Interestingly now a days doctors from Russian Speaking countries are coming to Maldives who are not even fit to be called MBBS doctors by the amount of knowledge they carry with themselves and the short list of medicines from which they can exploit. Although these so called Russian Specialist Doctors are working here, the only thing which is saving them from a show off is the lack of emergencies in health sector services. Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital Male’ is more accustomed to serious emergencies  and health challenges and you will find out that in no case will accept any Russian Doctor, and sometimes not even a Russian PG degree if the pursuer is from India for example. But towards these Russian Doctors they have a feeling that ‘These doctors don’t know much but they try to work with you and they are very noble (???). Sources of such feelings are not known to me.

4.      ‘Pakeez Doctors are always rude in behavior.’ This is better known to these people only why they think like that. I did not see any difference in behavior from our side.

5.      One Pediatrician in GA Atoll of Maldives was literally thrown out from his residence within a time frame of a day given to him to vacate the house. He had just come to the place to start working at that time and as I think had not spent even a month by that time in the new place. The story was conveyed to me when I was still working in Maldives. Interestingly the house belonged to a local staff’s family. Of course the management tried to locate a new room for the ‘Paedi’. The cause of this behavior was the behavior of the doctor who did not behave as per their wishes. That’s not a problem. Anyone may or may not like anyone. But the thing is, these type of things are not happening once only.

6.      In Raa Atoll of Maldives, there was a Pakistani Doctor working over an island. He had to change 4 houses in his 1 year tenure as he was time and again thrown out of his place.  At one place before he left the room, the land lord’s younger brother caught him by collar and made him pay MRF 250 for the so called cleaning up of that room after he will leave.

7.      In the IGMH as well, Pakistani Doctors are not liked. This is the words of my friends, 2 of which are still finishing up their contract there at the moment.

These people have somehow developed a dislike towards Pakistani Doctors (Nursing staff and paramedical staff is mostly from India only, and in that too mostly from southern Indian States). In general as well, there is a dislike towards Pakistan. Maldivian are Muslims, but not very much driven by the religious partiality which you can palpate in middle east countries. When it comes to work, they express their opinion free from these bias.

8.      There is a hospital (I forgot the exact name) where there is a Pakistani Pediatrician. Not that he must not be treating children as per his knowledge. But these people don’t want their babies to be admitted under him.  As soon as one or two days passes after admission, they will request the child to be referred to a higher center, which that doctor has to do, and they will simply either visit some other doctor’s OPD there itself or go to another nearby island where there is a regional hospital where there is a Russian Pediatrician working. It is a slap on the face of a specialist if the patient’s guardians are acting as if they are trying to run away from his clutches.

There may be endless stories. I am inviting any Pakistani fellow doctor to share his gory story if there is any. Purpose of telling these stories is not to malign anyone from anywhere rather to alert you people who are trying to come here from Pakistan to work. At any given day, this type of hatred in a closed country like this, can result in catastrophe. Who more than you people know the inside situation of most Islamic nations. There are some flaws here and there and most are without any strict law protecting foreigners, be it a muslim or from any other religion. Here these people try to target Pakistanis for sure. I myself have witnessed 3 or four such instances when things were going out of control opposite a Pakistani Doctor. Luckily till the moment there are not many casualties. But beware.

The Increasing Trouble in Maldives for expatriates in general.

1. This is a news clipping from the leading online newspaper from Maldives:

http://www.haveeru.com.mv/english/details/36335

MALE, May 12 (HNS) – The cabinet has decided to impose a limit on the amount of money that can be sent abroad by expatriate workers in the Maldives.

The government gazette said the cabinet, in its discussions on the ways to minimize the amount of money transferred abroad, decided to limit the amount that can be sent abroad by expatriate workers from their salaries and to prevent illegal expatriate workers from sending money abroad.

The cabinet further decided to fine expatriate workers who exceed the limit and the parties that provide the money transfer service.

The cabinet’s decisions on minimizing the amount of money sent abroad include drafting a regulation on transferring money abroad.

The regulation is to be drafted after discussions between Finance Ministry, Economic Ministry, Attorney General’s (AG) Office, Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), and other relevant authorities.

Some expatriate workers, however, reported facing difficulties in transferring money abroad following the dollar revaluation, as some banks are said to have imposed a ban on the amount of money than can be transferred abroad by expatriate workers.

“Earlier the Indian bank [State Bank of India] would transfer any amount when we pay it in Maldivian rufiyaa. But now a person can send US$500 per month,” an expatriate nurse working at Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) said. 
 

2. Another thing which is increasingly troubling the expatriate Doctors & Nurses now a days:

Now the situation in Maldives has become very difficult for expatriate workers. Be it a laborer or a doctor. For an average Maldivian, anyway  these both entities are same. They treat them alike. There are increasing instances of theft attempts, successful or unsuccessful ones, at the residences of expatriates living here.  Virtually there is not enough policing (there is virtually no policing here except in Male’) on the islands, some of them being totally devoid of any kind of policeman, to maintain the law and order situation. You can forget about any result of these so called police investigations anyway. All people over an island are brothers and sisters or relatives to each other. They will do everything to protect them only.

Suppose any theft occurs at your residence, the first question anyone will ask is ‘did they take your laptop and money?’.  You can clearly see a smirk over their face while asking this question. Hoping that they (the thieves) actually got these things from you. If you answer in negative like ‘No, luckily only little cash was left at home because you carry all your valuables with yourself on duty’, immediately their face hangs down. By words they will show sympathy towards you. But eventually they will spread words among the community that this fellow is carrying all his valuables with him or her on duty all the time. And guess what, one day you will be hassled in a dark corner somewhere when you are going from or coming to duty. Duty changing time is very strange here. 8am to 4pm is an ok one. But the second shift is from 4pm to midnight and the third shift is from midnight to 8am. During both these shifts, you need to walk at dark hours. There is rain or drizzle around. Nobody is outside except these outlaws. They can rob you without much trouble.

Staff Nurses are walking in herds all the time to save themselves from this kind of situation. But being a doctor, you need to walk alone as duty changing time is variable. And then there are on call situations. If you are going out on call at 2am in night, it is well understood that you may be leaving your laptop or valuables at your residence only. The very relative of the patient  for whom you have been called in emergency can be watching your movement and barge inside your room with his friends behind you. By the time you finish your work, which can take half an hour to a few hours, you can return back home to see the aftermath of this robbery. Now you try to call your manager up and do whatever, the authorities may even stop attending to your calls. They will listen to you in the morning when the so called police will come with a big bag full of equipments (again donated from some other developed country), will show as if they are collecting evidences and all, the statement will be recorded. And what will happen afterwards??? Nothing. In 2-4 days you will receive an intimation that they could not find the culprit as there were not enough clues at the site of robbery.

How difficult it is to take fingerprints of a population of even 3000 (usually islands are having population within 1000 – 1500 in case of a well populated island. There are places where a total of only 500-600 people live.), where only 150-200 young boys may be present? It is virtually possible. And moreover there are known drug offenders and doubtful characters over the island. Everybody knows them. Only they deny in front of us, but they themselves know that their son or brother is taking drugs or alcohol. Alcohol dependence is quite common among the men who are working in resorts. So, it is not very difficult to find out who has taken your belongings. But they will never do this. They actually protect the thieves.

Your salary, your current behavior, everything is told to everybody over the island. They simply call hospital about the person on duty and if that fellow is on duty, they will pay a visit to his room, try to open windows etc if there is some loose lock (days are not far away when they will break the window without any hesitation.

There is a staff nurse in an Atoll hospital who lives in a house with other 5 staff nurses. That house is having 3 rooms and a kitchen etc. One day she was on call for 2 hours only (from 1am to 3am in night) and by chance all other housemates were on duty together. She saw her land lord’s son trying to peek inside her room’s window with a steel rod in hand. No need to say that the boy was informed that then the only occupant, the sister who was on call, was out of the house for a few hours and he could go inside by opening the window lock of her room. The information about this loose window lock was given by the sister herself to the land lord 2 days back so that it could get repaired. That boy used these information to plan the robbery. Luckily the sister saw him from a distance where there was darkness on road due to which that boy could not see her. Around houses usually there is a light bulb on to illuminate the area. The aforementioned sister simply showed as if she is not seeing him (he could have beaten her if he would have thought that she will tell others and testify against him. They both knew each other as he was the only son of the land lord and collecting rent as well) and entered her house and the boy went away. This is a story for us to think upon.