Beads, beds and bonkers bureaucracy

“Have you seen patient’s bead?” 
“Er… Patient’s bead?” I didn’t understand. What bead?

In paediatric theatre departments, beads do indeed quite commonly frequent. Usually in noses of small people. Or in ears. But now it was morning and no patients, or beads, were yet around. Still, this senior nurse was asking me if I’d seen one.

“Yes?” She looked at me questioningly. 
“S-sorry, but what do you mean?” I asked, slightly flustered. 
“I mean the piece of furniture that you lay down in, that you can sleep in; a bead. Have you seen such for the patient; they are about to come out any minute!” It could have been patronising but she wasn’t unfriendly, just to the point and finally I got it.
“Ah! A bed! You mean patient’s bed!” 
“Yes, a bead!” she smiled 
“But you were saying…” I managed to stop right there. If anyone should comment on accents it for sure wasn’t me.

She was a Kiwi of course and had already been here for some years on a so-called work visa. A work visa is, as you might have guessed, a visa that has to do with work. Job – visa, no job – no visa. Quite simple really.

This New Zealand girl, a bubbly and clever thing, was a hard and good worker. She had, however, reduced her hours. There were small ones in the picture and she wanted to see more of them.

One morning, she didn’t show up at her shift as usual. It transpired that she’d broken the rules. The reduction of her working hours had been too excessive and they no longer met the required number. Maybe she was supposed to work thirty hours a week, but had done just twenty-five. I don’t remember exactly. Judging by the letter she’d received from the Home Office she’d done something rather bad. Could be that this wasn’t that simple after all.

The other staff and I got concerned. She was quite settled here. And she did a good job in the hospital – we needed her! But we were told not to worry too much; her case had gone straight up to the hospital trust head office.

Ah, it would be alright then. A genuine mistake had been committed and now one of the biggest trusts in the country fought her case. Surely the home office would be coaxed into taking a lenient approach? A slap on the wrist, a firm telling-off and an immediate return back to the required work schedule – that was all that was going to happen, or so we thought.

I scratched my head. Was this the meaning of the rule of law?

If only. Rules had been broken and that was that. I never saw her again. Before we knew it, she and her family were back in New Zealand. As for the hospital, they hired yet another agency nurse. I scratched my head. Was this the meaning of the rule of law? It seemed irrational and counterproductive to the point of being self-destructive. Having her should be in the interest of any sensible country.

Then, just the other day, several years later, there was another case, this time in France. Similar, but now the offender had been caught working too much rather than too little!

A lady from Lebanon, who arrived in France 18 years ago, had her citizenship application rejected.[1] She’s a nurse and had been working, she says, up to 53 hours a week in a couple of different hospitals. Naughty! According to French law, employees must not exceed 44 hours in a 12-week period. Alas, her request was duly turned down.

How dare she challenge continental working standards? Imagine immigrants coming over here, doing as they please. Working hard and all sorts. Chaos and general suffering would soon ensue!

But maybe it was all a mistake? An absurd, almost comical, misunderstanding? Or, at the very least, an anomaly, yes? No, Sanjay Navy, a lawyer, testifies that French visa applications are regularly being rejected due to unruly immigrants spending too many an hour at work.[2] He points out security guards as one group regularly caught out in this Kafkaesque mess of bureaucratic insanity.

Britain isn’t so bad after all.

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[1] https://www.metro.news/migrant-told-you-work-too-hard-to-be-french-citizen/1658079/
[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/18/france-turns-citizenship-immigrant-nurse-works-much/