With X to hospital surgery/clinic (bilingual variants). Much like a Russian store of Soviet times. Initial queue about twenty patients long to register at one of two wickets. Residents all have orange folders with medical info inside as well as blue prescription books with counterfoils - one copy for the pharmacy and one for the records. Many patients go privately - these are the ones who don't, mostly I suspect for financial reasons rather than on principle. Though it 's not free - there is an up front fee of €3 ( approx £2.40, $4.50 CAD). Patients are assigned to wait outside the door of one of the two or three GPs in attendance ( five doors but not all concealing doctors this morning. An (inexplicably) shorter queue appears to be for approval of prescriptions, in advance of the actual prescribing. Each costs €0.50 regardless of what is being prescribed when the prescription is taken to the dispensary.
Then a more disorganised queuing outside the door of the assigned doctors. No handy butcher's take-a-number but there are little numbers on the assigned paper work, so a little comparing with the others does it. Assuming one speaks a little Greek. Today unusually busy as it follows a long weekend but wait only fifteen or twenty minutes.
Final step involves taking 50 cent receipts plus prescriptions to dispensary to exchange for medication - further queuing similar to that at parts counter at busy automotive supply.
Whole organisation highly reminiscent of Soviet era shopping, when any purchase seemed to involve at least six interchanges, employees, bits of paper, etc between inquiring after the item and leaving with same plus receipt.
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