Proud owner of a resident permit !

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 8:04 pm · Filed under Living... and tagged: immigration, medical test

When we arrived in Qatar, last March, neither my husband, nor our baby, nor me had a resident permit. We came with our passports and paid for one-month tourist visas. Having a resident permit allow a foreigner to stay longer than one month in Qatar.

You cannot come and work in Qatar without a sponsor. The sponsor is a firm which asks you to come and work for it and gets a work and resident permit for you and a resident permit for all members of your family when they also emigrate.

Being the only one who works and his own sponsor, my husband had to get his resident permit first. Accompanied by the firm PRO (Public relations officer – that is the one that can speak arabic), he went many and many times to the Ministry of Interior to fill forms and provide documents about the firm, his job, etc. Then he took some medical examinations and got his resident permit.

Meanwhile, our baby’s and my visas got outdated and i was forced to exit the country for Bahrain (aka the visa trip) and come back to get a fresh new visa. Plus, as it was several days outdated, i had to pay a big fine first.

So when my husband got the papers that officially said that my baby and i could take the examinations, we headed first to the National Health Authority. In the Ladies only aisle, there were a lot of women that were waiting. I paid 200 Riyals for my baby and me. For children under the age of 12, parents have to give a photograph and have a paper signed and buffered for them.

In different rooms, i had some of my blood drawn for a HIV test and my lungs x-rayed five times – the first time was not good so they made me come back a week later and x-rayed me four other times to be sure! Plus, i had to get a blood type test in the nearest hospital.

After a little while, you need to read the medical results on the Ministry of Interior’s website to go further. There, you need the help of your PRO if you do not read arabic.

A week later, i had to go to another part of the city where a kind man took all of my fingerprints. My fingers and palms were placed on a glass and were digitized.

Another week later, we came back to the immigration office, gave all the documents and medical results, waited not too long this time and… tah dah!

My resident permit!

Comments