Yesterday I had to renew my ATC Medical Certificate at HASP (Aeronautical Hospital of São Paulo), which we, as Air Traffic Controllers, have to do every year.
When my wife, who is an ATCO as well, told me that they had a WI-FI installed, I thought it would be great if I took my laptop with me, so that I could do something on the internet while waiting for them to print my certificate after having finished all the examinations. I still can remember the last day I went there and finished all my exams at 10:00 am and then I had to wait for the certificate till 1:00 pm doing nothing.
When I arrived there, approximately at 6:30 am, I parked my car, took just my book with me and left the laptop inside the car hoping that I could use it later. In the hall, the ATCOs-pilots-and-flight-attendants-well-known-self-opinionated-arrogant-old woman was already distributing forms and passwords for the comers, when I heard one pilot asking her if he was supposed to fill in the form beforehand and she rudely answered "just take it, wait for the passwords on the display and do whatever you want". "6:40 am and this woman is already stressed out, this morning will be endless", I thought. Unfortunately, sometimes effrontery seems to be part of military orientation.
Nowadays, in order to do the exams faster, they give us two passwords, an individual and another one for each group of 10. Every time a group is called, everybody in it has to go to the room at the same time, so that the doctors can look at us as fast as they can and then call the other group. After taking my form and passwords I sat down and as soon as I started reading my book, the display with that disturbing call began to work. Only at 9:30 am, I was asked to have an X-ray and then take blood and urine samples, then I was free to have breakfast before continuing the examinations. I ate much faster and less than I usually do in order not to miss the next call which was from the cardiology. Afterwards, I waited, waited and waited... But this time I had a book to read, so I read, read and read for a long period til I heard someone asking that old woman what happened with number 86, my group number. And being ill-mannered again, she said that probably they had called us and we hadn't heard it because we never pay attention. I couldn't believe in what I was hearing , so I stood up and asked her, trying to be polite because my Medical Certificate was at stake, how it would be possible with 10 people looking at that display! Then she said that she would see what had happened. Fifteen minutes later, one of us went to look for our file when he finally found it laying down on the floor in one of the rooms. Our examinations restarted and we finished approximately at 12:00 am, surprisingly at the same time of the others who seemed not having had the same problem. Probably they had had other ones...
When I thought it was finished, I remembered that I had to see the shrink and they had completely forgotten about it. It's really weird in the aviation world why only air traffic controllers have to see a psychiatrist every year while pilots and flight attendants don't, even after what happened on 9/11 attacks, not to mention that accident in Goiania two months ago when a pilot flew a small aircraft intentionally towards a mall killing himself and his own daughter!
I tried to warn that woman about my situation, but in vain since she didn't pay any attention to me. So I went to ask the lieutenant in charge if I needed to see the srink. I thought maybe the authorities realised that there is no point in visitng a psychiatrist just once a year. Astonishingly he had to ask someone else because he didn't know the answer. And the answer was "yes, you have to see him, but as he has already gone, you can come back tomorrow morning".
But what I'm talking about? Hitches like these occur everyday at HASP! Let's see what is going to happen next year!
