Last night, I had a headache and could not sleep. So I went to the guards' station and asked for paracetamol. The guard telephoned a nurse who was on a break and would not return for another five minutes. So I waited. The guard called the nurse again but this time, the nurse was on the phone with someone. According to the guard, one nurse is receiving all calls from all detention centres in this country so that it could take long for her to get a permission to give me paracetamol. The guard put the phone on hold and waited for five minutes. No signs of the nurse picking up the guard's call. So I decided to fill in a complaint form.
I wrote the first complaint form without using my glasses. I could not see anything well but usually, my writing is still legible. But since it was very uncomfortable to write anything without actually seeing it, I took the case of my reading glasses out of my bag, opened the case and picked up a temple of my glasses. I thought I would take the entire glasses out of the case but only one temple came out!! I did not realise that a screw came off and a temple was off the rest of the glasses... Ughhhhhh. I called the ERTs who were mucking about in my compound at that time to look for a screw in the dark. (It was 1.40am.) They could not find it, unsurprisingly. So I ended up writing the second complaint form without glasses, too.
After a while, the guard eventually got hold of the nurse and the nurse allowed the guard to give me paracetamol. So I went back to bed.
This morning, I was showing my broken glasses to each and every guard I met and asked for their advice. They recommended me to go to show the broken glasses to the Medical Centre. One of the guards whose wife is a plaintiff lawyer advised me that I should complain to the medical by saying that it would be the medical's fault if I cannot get new glasses and walk into a guard and get charged with assault. Hello... Even I don't make such a far-fetched claim.... But I decided to go to the Medical to ask for new glasses. Thereafter, I had to go back to the Medical every hour to try to get hold of a nurse. At 3pm, I eventually caught a nurse and successfully negotiated with her the arrangement to post my two new pairs of glasses to my unit on the Gold Coast Wednesday next week when the glasses arrived at the centre. I did everything I could. I give up a dentist. I can have Ibuprofen for the moment.
Since I told a few people that I would go back to Queensland tomorrow or on Friday, my friends came one after the other to ask me to read their documents. I do not have a problem with that so long as they in fact bring their document to me. People here tend to ask and not to follow through.... My friends in 2006 always followed me everywhere with their documents in hand until I actually do something for them. Really different....