"Calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an inconvenience. Noise must be considered a hazard to the health of people everywhere."
-Dr William H Stewart,
former US Surgeon General
The mini bacchanal surrounding the WASA fete and its effects on sick children at the EWMSC is astounding. Even in a place where common sense seems to have taken an early leave of absence, to think that there is even a doubt in anyone's mind that the noise from the fete is not harming hospital-ised children is truly sad. Noise causes stress. Stress is the last thing you want when you are ill. Have we really become so indifferent to the feelings of others that we are willing to harm sick children just to have a chance to fete? "No one ever complain!" says one organiser. So what? That is an excuse? No one ever complained because no one thought it would do any good, sir. I was in charge of the Mount Hope Children's Hospital from its inception in 1991 until 1996 and I can still remember the horrors we had to go through on the night of the big WASA fete, when the noise level downwind from the fete became intolerable. Nurses steupsed, children woke up and cried and I complained the next day to hospital management to no avail.
Hospital life on our tiny Carib-bean island, bathed by the romantic waters of the Caribbean Sea, full moon rising over Toco, palm trees gently waving in the dusky evening breeze and the sound of a large fete, a hundred yards away, blasting away at 120 decibels (dB), the threshold where noise causes pain.
Nothing, not the traffic, not the crime, not even the cricket being played by the West Indies, epitomises the fall from grace that civil life in T&T has undergone in the last 30 years as the amount of noise that we are daily subjected to. David Staudacher of Vancouver's Right to Quiet Society says, "By any standard of health, all else being equal, from infant mortality to life expectancy, statistics will show that people are healthier in quiet areas than in noisy ones. The reason, I believe, is that noise destroys the sense of public peace and tranquillity that nourishes healthy social interaction." "Noise destroys the sense of public peace and tranquility that nourishes healthy social interaction." Now there's an interesting thought. Could noise be part of the reason why everyone is blithely running around the place doing their own thing without thinking it might be interfering with someone else?
Noise has become a way of life in T&T. You grow up with noise. You hear it inside your mother's womb. You hear it inside your house. Pass around by any school and you would wonder how human beings can survive much less learn anything. Now it's in the hospitals. It was not always so. Growing up in Woodbrook, silence was the order of the day. Every now and then you did have a bacchanal down the road when some drunken husband returned home and began beating his wife or child. Or somebody began chasing a chicken "tief!" up Stone Street in the wee hours of the morning, policeman on bicycle in hot pursuit. Very rarely one heard the screeching of brakes on Wrightson Road opposite the Fire Brigade Station, and the short silence. Ever notice that short, very pregnant silence, while one waited for the "badamm!" of metal hitting metal? We all know how difficult it is to think when we are in noisy surroundings. Whenever I used to manage cardiac resuscitations, the first thing I would do would be to ask everyone to pipe down. Do people understand how annoying noise is when one is trying to concentrate? Or simply listen to a sick and crying child's lungs?
People aren't the only creatures affected by noise pollution. Airplane noise can cause birds to abandon their nests and young, and many species of whales run away from the low frequency noises of ship engines and from high frequency sonar. One wonders what the blimp and the frequent low-flying helicopters roaring down the Diego Martin Valley are doing to our birds. They are certainly driving my dogs crazy. To enable you to understand some of this decibel level business, here is an explanation of some sounds. Rustling leaves (20dB); a soft whisper three feet away (30dB); normal conversation (55-60dB). (You ever see two Trinidadians having a discussion? 70 to 75dB!) A vacuum cleaner or highway traffic (80dB); gas-powered lawn mower (90dB). At 7 am on Sunday mornings, that is loud! A weed whacker (110dB). That is a crime! Fete music (120dB). Call the police! Oops, we cannot. Is "we culture!" Noise reduction starts with all of us. Everybody can turn down their stereos a notch, try not to make noise early in the morning or late at night, and adopt other simple "good neighbour" behaviours. It is time to control the level of noise in our neighbourhoods and controlling the noise level near a hospital should be the place to start.