No medical insurance? No worries. This Jordanian man has found a way to take care of his medical needs, absolutely free of charge.

The Zarqa resident intentionally landed himself in prison, with the full knowledge that he would undergo a compulsory medical test that would get him the medical attention he desperately needed.

Clever, no?

Maybe, but legal, it isn’t.

With no medical insurance under his name, this was the phoney prisoner’s only way to get a much-needed surgery; one which the government forked out 19,000 JOD ($27,000) on.

Every prisoner is medically covered by their prison. The Zarqa Prison is 900,000 square meters and currently has 2160 inmates, who are tested for AIDS and other diseases.

But what the conman did is deeply rooted to a bigger problem: has the financial situation in Jordan gotten so bad that the only way to save one’s life is by committing a crime?

Inmates in prisons and detention centres cost Jordanian taxpayers over 10 million JD a year.

According to the Government Coordinator for Human Rights, Basel Tarawneh, there are currently 14,106 inmates in the 15 prisons and detention centres across Jordan.