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Why the policeman is always right.

The phone in outpatients has been ringing stridently for several minutes. Everyone walks past, oblivious, but I finally crack.

“Hello?”

“Hi? Who is that?” says a unexpectedly Englishly accented voice.

“It’s Ed.”

“Hi – it’s Steve.” Steve is one of our elective students. “We’ve run into a bit of a problem.”

“What?”

“Well, I went with Emma to clinic and we were sort of stopped by the police. And I think we have been arrested.”

“What?!”

“And Emma is quite upset. I was wondering whether you could send someone down to get us?”

“Where are you?”

“Mtubatuba police station.”

Hours later we hear the whole story from Emma herself.

“We were driving to the next clinic when the police pull me over. And they looked at the Hospital Transport Itinerary document and see that Steve is not on it. ‘Who is he?’ they asked.

‘One of our students.’

‘Why is he not on the itinerary?’

‘I didn’t know he had to be. I can put him on now.’

‘No you can’t – that is illegal. You are using this car illegally. You cannot use state property for giving lifts to an unauthorised person.’

‘But he is a student.’

‘He is unauthorised. I could confiscate this car.’

And that is where I probably over-reacted. I started ranting a bit: ‘It’s no surprise no one wants to work in these rural places. We come here, we try to look after people and then people like you stop us. This student – he will never come back now. I have 30 people to see at the next clinic and you are stopping me from looking after them. You say you can confiscate the car. Well go then! It’s not my car. I don’t care. Confiscate it!’”

“And what happened?” we asked Emma breathlessly.

She shrugs. “He confiscated it. I had to follow him to the police station. I cried all the way. Steve just kept saying ‘Oh God, oh God.’”

“And when do we get the car back?”

“Apparently I have to write a letter of apology,” she says with a grin.

I suspect it was a somewhat equivocally phrased letter of apology. The car was returned just recently. 3 months later.

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