Last Friday we gathered at the former Foundation for International Self-Help Jamaica Limited (FISH) Clinic to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the renamed Louis Grant Medical Centre in honour of its founder, Professor Grant. The beloved professor created the clinic in 1975 at 19 Gordon Town Road, near Papine, to serve less fortunate Jamaicans.

In her tribute at the event, his daughter, Bette Grant Otunla, traced the humble beginnings of this son of Mitchell Town, Clarendon, whose love of learning gained him the Vere Trust Scholarship to Jamaica College at a time when the College was a school for the privileged. The outstanding student was recommended by his headmaster, William Cowper, to take up a position at the government laboratory. This involved working visits to the Kingston Public Hospital where young Grant became interested in medicine, and with his savings and assistance from his family, enrolled at University of Edinburgh.

“He graduated in 1939 with his medical degree, three months before World War II started, and returned to the government laboratory in Jamaica,” shared his daughter. Soon after “he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship to do a master’s in public health at the University of Michigan in the USA, which then had one of the best public health programmes in the world … [He] set up an excellent system of laboratory services in Jamaica on his return,” she said. This continues to be a linchpin of Jamaica’s health system.

Professor Grant was one of the first members of staff at the newly established The University College of the West Indies (UCWI) and was awarded a scholarship to study bacteriology at London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Thus armed, he set up the Department of Bacteriology at The UCWI. His research on tropical diseases led him to appeal to the World Health Organization and UNICEF to provide vaccines for an islandwide immunisation operation. We can thank the goodly professor for the eradication of tuberculosis in Jamaica.

Further, he noted the suffering of patients with leptospirosis and embarked on a public education campaign so Jamaicans would learn to protect themselves from rats, which carried this often-fatal disease. When equine encephalitis became widespread among horses, Professor Grant set up an area for animals near the Mona Post Office where he could test and treat them.

The professor used his knowledge to help protect Jamaica’s livestock. One of his colleagues at the Department of Bacteriology, Dr Owen James, recalled, “Outside of the department in nearby communities like August Town or further afield in St Thomas, chickens or goats or horses or other animals would be kept in certain areas and checked from time to time. This could signal a warning of an imminent outbreak of a particular disease, based on the findings from these ‘Sentinel stations’.”

Professor Grant after retirement

With the then retirement age at The University of the West Indies (formerly UCWI) being 60, Professor Grant continued his work in Canada. Dr Rebecca Tortello wrote, “Throughout the decade he spent in Canada, Dr Grant became an active member of the Ontario Public Health Association and the Canadian Public Health Association, a community activist, and an advocate for social justice.”

Returning to Jamaica at 72, Professor Grant opened the clinic at 19 Gordon Town Road, near Papine. “At that time the government health facilities had very limited eye care services, although there were the medical and dental clinics, it was the eye clinic which drew the majority of patients,” noted Grant Otunla.

Professor Grant’s supportive wife, Pauline, did “a crash course” in laboratory management and operated the lab which was initially housed in a converted “Jolly Joseph” bus, according to their daughter.

“The staff were all volunteers, no one was paid a salary for the first year,” she said. Adding that, “They were given lunch free and were given transport money… Mrs Fletcher [who served as his assistant] told me that she had read a notice in The Gleaner asking for volunteers, she showed up the next day, Monday, and was promptly put to work by my father, typing a letter to the Minister of Health, although she had never touched a typewriter before. That was what it was like working with ‘Prof’, as he was affectionately called. He would work from 8:00 am in the morning until sometimes 8 o’clock at night, not leaving until the last medical patient was seen (often by him in his lab coat). His loyal staff would stay with him until he was finished.”

The professor’s service to Canada attracted much goodwill. “Due to his many contacts in Canada and particularly his contact with a wealthy Canadian philanthropist, Ken Davis, dozens of containers arrived in Jamaica full of medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and even food,” said his daughter. “There was so much equipment donated that the clinic was able to share some of it with government clinics and hospitals.” she further stated.

The clinic was also served by overseas volunteers from the USA, UK, Canada, Cuba, Russia, and Nigeria. Among the local doctors who served faithfully at the clinic were Dr Owen James; the late Dr Leon Vaughan, who chaired the Medical Committee; and the late Dr Annette Alexis, who told me how happy she was to treat the humble patients. Sport organiser, the late Headley Forbes, was a founding member of the FISH Board, and it was heart-warming that his son, Custos of St Andrew Ian Forbes, brought greetings and good memories to the anniversary celebration.

“Patients would pay $5.00 to see the medical doctor and the ophthalmologist, and a little more to see the dentist. Frames and lenses were provided to the clinic free of cost by Food For the Poor,” shared Grant Otunla. “… A Canadian pharmaceutical firm called Novopharm, which made generic drugs, agreed to supply the clinic and for the first few years patients got medication free of charge,” she said.

Professor Grant’s work has continued since his passing at 80 years old in 1993. As I toured the facilities earlier this week I could see that General Manager Patricia Sinclair-McCalla has brought her own brand of excellence to the renovation and reorganisation of the flow of operations. Grant Otunla, a busy attorney-at-law, devotes her Fridays to the thrift shop at the centre, raising $1.2 million last year for the cause.

I hope Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton will tour the facilities at the Louis Grant Medical Centre. I believe it would inspire him to engage in more partnerships to increase the delivery of primary health care. Let us take Professor Grant’s dream of affordable health care islandwide.

New SAJPAJL Executive

Commander George Overton, past chair of the St Andrew Justices of the Peace Association of Jamaica Limited (SAJPAJL), advised the names of its new executive last Saturday, some re-elected and others in their first term: chair: Norris Rhoomes, First Vice-Chair Beverley Williamson; Second Vice-Chair Sonia Jones; Treasurer Courtney Wynter; Assistant Treasurer Paul Chin; Assistant Secretary Winsome Callum (second year); Carlette DeLeon; directors Ann-Marie Morrison, Glaister Ricketts, Andrea C Whyte, Novlet Green, S Lorraine Ross Clunie, and Dr Andre Cooke. Congratulations to these generous individuals.

Jean Lowrie-Chin is an author and executive director of PROComm, PRODEV, and CCRP. Send comments to lowriechin@aim.com.

The FISH Clinic has been renamed the Louis Grant Medical Centre.

The Louis Grant Medical Centre on Gordon Town Road in St Andrew