Cataract surgery was a double eye-opener for 77-year-old Seixal pensioner Maria do Rosário.
She didn’t just get to see better, she won a luxury car. Now she’s planning to take driving lessons, as she hasn’t driven for years.
The bizarre turn of events centres on the government’s ‘Lucky Receipt’ scheme. The former university lecturer who lives in an old people’s home asked for a receipt for the recent operation to her left eye, and was amazed when she received a call from the local tax office.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me.”
The swanky Audi A4 is now languishing in a garage while Maria brushes up on her Highway Code and organises a crash course behind the wheel.
“I have to re-learn how to drive!”, she explained. “A kind friend helped me get the car into the garage the other day. I won’t be able to get it out on my own. I don’t even know where I will keep it in the end.”
According to Correio da Manhã, Maria’s is the 12th luxury car to have been awarded in the last two months. This week, another three are up for grabs – all of them top-of-the-range Audi A6s.
The government’s scheme – designed to encourage people to ask for receipts and rootle out the black economy – has come under criticism, nonetheless, for pushing ‘luxury’ at a time when everyone is being exhorted towards austerity.
Unemployed people have also criticised the scheme for giving people things they don’t need, while on national TV a blind man pointed out that the scheme did not take people with disabilities into account.
