So easy it is to forget the people who once served us well. So effortless to banish them from our thoughts after they retire. But tonight, we will walk back in time to remember Nurse Tatica Scatliffe.
A generation of BVI people have grown up without knowing that name but those who laboured with her will never forget.
When Nurse Tatica served our BVI, we had a Public Health Department, which we have foolishly dismantled. I was in the room, so part of the folly was mine.
At the height of her service, Nurse Scatliffe was the Senior Public Health Nurse in Road Town, and as such, she was responsible for the health services provided to the entire BVI community.
Her focus was on illnesses prevention and avoiding hospitalizations. It was a big job. It included ‘home health care’ which covered mothers, infants and children, the sick, shut in and the elderly.
She ran many clinics including maternal and child health, school health and immigration. But the one I believe she loved the most was the diabetic clinic.
Beyond monitoring the conditions of diabetic patients, she provided a social space. For, those patients had the similar life impacts of advancing age, dietary limitations and clinical needs.
They came from far and wide to attend. After all, type 2 diabetes, which is now rampant in all age groups, was a chronic condition that ended in death.
It would be decades later before the likes of Drs Klapper, McDougall, Goldner, Bulsiewicz, Ornish, et al, would refute that belief and tell us:
“It’s the food.”
(And although Ms Laura Lyons, a temporary BVI transplant, reversed her diabetes successfully with a new dietary and exercise approach, her lone voice and example were ignored.)
Whole food, plant-based doctors like those mentioned above are adamant that type 2 diabetes that leads us down the road of insulin resistance, poor circulation, lost appendages, kidney disease, cardiovascular issues, death … is fully reversible.
But the BVI populace does not know the most current research: Those who do are skeptical; Others are unwilling to disrupt a good business model.
And the affected may not have even heard of Hippocrates’ quote: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Nevertheless, a growing multitude have already had their chronic diseases reversed.
And so, Nurse Scatliffe's forgotten work in Public Health and the country's abandonment of Primary Health Care have created a vacuum.
The idea of reversal of chronic diseases that could only, in the past, be managed, would have realized her dream for better diabetes outcomes in particular, but health for all, in general.
With Nurse Tatica’s work in public health in collaboration with the Mental Health Nurses looking after those so challenged in the streets; Backed up by the Health Education team;
The Nutritionists, the Sex Education specialists, the Dental Health and Hygiene professionals, the Environmental Health and Solid Waste Officers and, of course, the Medical Officers of Health;
They were the backbone of the brilliantly functioning Public Health System that had ushered the BVI out of the age of infectious diseases.
That is what we threw away for a model of health care that is really "sick care". No prevention! No education! Just expensive cures; Secondary, tertiary and specialist.
But chronic, non-infectious, lifestyle diseases are not above the capacity of public-health solutions. And the NHI scheme, an innovative introduction to fund the system, will soon be bankrupt because preventative health is out the door and curative health is the focus.
And as it pertains in other countries, homelessness, resulting from sick care costs, awaits us in the shadows.
And while a swift intervention is needed when acute illness strikes, we still subscribe to the adage; “An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.”
But in the end, especially when a system collapses, who cares for the former caregivers?
We know that a Good Samaritan and her team do their best with their own resources as a labour of love but we are also aware that Officialdom is neither interested in them nor their activities.
For all that she has done, who knows what has become of Nurse Tatica Scatliffe and many like her? Whether she, and they, are recipients of the care they have dispensed throughout their careers.
We can venture a guess.
If the 13 were only focused on the people, BVI could be a centre of excellence in many respects.
If as much thought, planning and scheming could go into the needs of the people as went into the ‘Greedy Bill,’ then the people of this territory would be in safe hands.
Nurse Tatica Scatliffe deserves to be in safe hands.
“Cry the beloved country.” (Alan Paton). Or go along with Ella Fitzgerald’s suggestion and “Cry me a river.”
But tears and prayers can never take the place of duty.
So, on our Fridays, we will discuss the possibilities as we ponder these things in our hearts.
Happy Friday!