David E Bratt, MD

There were times, when I was away study­ing in Bal­ti­more, then I be­came both­ered by the thought of re­turn­ing to what was and is, a very con­ser­v­a­tive so­ci­ety, one that would have dif­fi­cul­ty ac­cept­ing new ideas about health and med­i­cine. That made me think about what I knew of life back home in T&T, start­ing with the Days of Our Lives char­ac­ter of the is­land.

I de­cid­ed to look for po­ten­tial al­lies. So I be­gan hit­ting the mag­a­zine stacks in the med­ical li­brary, check­ing for ar­ti­cles about T&T, about chil­dren and pub­lic health and nu­tri­tion and fem­i­nism and the en­vi­ron­ment and the so­cial con­tract. Hav­ing no con­tacts at home ex­cept those who thought a doc­tor was a se­ri­ous man in a suit and tie dri­ving a big car (not re­al­ly my thing), I fig­ured I might find some­thing pub­lished. And I found noth­ing. Na­da. Not a word. I searched for weeks and weeks. I found some stuff on par­a­sites. And virus­es.

From the T&T Rock­e­feller Pub­lic Health Lab but noth­ing about the so­cial sci­ences. And so I be­gan to pan­ic. Things were bad, yes, I knew that but you mean no­body was pub­lish­ing any­thing about life in T&T? No one was in­ter­est­ed in the things I was in­ter­est­ed in? What was the in­fant mor­tal­i­ty? What was the fer­til­i­ty rate? What did peo­ple eat? Was the air pol­lut­ed? Was the wa­ter clean? How many ra­dios were there per capi­ta? Were there eth­nic dif­fer­ences in mor­bid­i­ty? Was vi­o­lence a prob­lem? Traf­fic? Po­lice? I found some stuff about Ja­maica.

I found stuff about Cu­ba. Venezuela. But it was as if the rest of the Caribbean did not ex­ist. Where was T&T? One af­ter­noon, one of the li­brar­i­ans ap­proached me with a small brown, dirty-look­ing mag­a­zine in her hand and said, "This has just come in, it might have some­thing." It didn't but it was the Caribbean Food and Nu­tri­tion In­sti­tute Quar­ter­ly and it had all sorts of in­ter­est­ing ar­ti­cles about what Caribbean peo­ple ate so I de­cid­ed to seek out old­er pub­li­ca­tions and lo and be­hold there was this ar­ti­cle about some­thing called the House­wives As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T!

And some­body called Hazel Brown was rais­ing the call to arms about food prices and lo­cal food and im­port­ed stuff and I said, "Whew! At last, at least, some­one!" Un­der­stand how I felt. In 1977, be­liev­ing in the right of women and chil­dren to have clean wa­ter, nour­ish­ing food, a warm place to live and thrive etc, all ba­sic to good health, was not uni­ver­sal­ly ac­cept­ed. I was told in no un­cer­tain terms when I ar­rived back here that I was to con­cen­trate on my hos­pi­tal du­ties and for­get what was hap­pen­ing out­side and to tell you the truth, that has changed lit­tle in the field of med­i­cine.

The idea of NGOs in T&T stand­ing up for peo­ple was fu­tur­is­tic. In the sev­en­ties, the on­ly NGOs around were the Co­terie of So­cial Work­ers, amaz­ing­ly found­ed in 1921; the Child Wel­fare League (1949); the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, 1957, and Hazel's first at­tempt at so­cial ac­tivism, HATT, 1971. For me this is Hazel Brown's lega­cy.

Hazel was part and par­cel of that 1970's grass­roots move­ment, the start­ing point of or­gan­ised so­cial ac­tivism that re­sult­ed in the es­tab­lish­ment of most of the NGOs in T&T. Rape Cri­sis Cen­tre: start­ed in 1984; The T&T Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence: 1988; CAFRA, 1991; AL­TA, 1992. The Con­sor­tium of Dis­abil­i­ty Or­gan­i­sa­tions (CO­DO) was not found­ed un­til 2001. Many of these lay or­gan­i­sa­tions grew out of Hazel Brown's work. For me she has been the pre­mier so­cial ac­tivist since In­de­pen­dence.

There were oth­ers but she was the first one, in my time, who seemed to get any­thing done and she is by far the most use­ful. Ex­cept for the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion, the idea of lay peo­ple and doc­tors form­ing groups and to­geth­er work­ing for prop­er health care did not ex­ist in T&T in 1977. Hazel was the very first non­med­ical per­son I met in T&T who was not afraid of speak­ing her mind to a med­ical doc­tor and be­cause of her sup­port I was en­cour­aged to do my thing. TIBS is the first of the or­gan­i­sa­tions that, part­ly be­cause of Hazel's ideas, I have been as­so­ci­at­ed with.

TIBS start­ed in 1978. In 1982 Hazel was part of the TIBS breast­feed­ing group that per­suad­ed the gov­ern­ment of the day and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to stop ad­ver­tis­ing of breast­milk sub­sti­tutes. Oth­er NGOs were Com­mu­ni­ty Chest (1983); the Im­mortelle Chil­dren's Cen­tre for Spe­cial Ed­u­ca­tion in 1986 and Fam­i­lies in Ac­tion, 1988. I can­not stress how much Hazel Brown helped all of us. Just know­ing that she was around, and as­sertive­ly around too, was so en­cour­ag­ing. I knew she would sup­port me in just about any­thing I said or did.

I al­so knew I could de­pend on her to talk me in plain, prac­ti­cal terms when she did not agree with me. She was nev­er vin­dic­tive or pet­ty. Al­ways clear-mind­ed and to the point. So if she did not agree, I learned I need­ed to back off and re-think my po­si­tion. It is sim­ply won­der­ful to have some­one like that around. She is still here, very much so. Every time TIBS has a walk, Hazel Brown is there! Every time I need some ad­vice about a breast­feed­ing mat­ter or pol­i­cy is­sue, Hazel is at the end of the tele­phone.

Every time I write an ar­ti­cle about chil­dren's health, Hazel is in touch by phone or email with words of en­cour­age­ment. And each time that there is a pub­lic out­cry re­gard­ing some as­pect of breast­feed­ing, Hazel is at the fore­front of the demon­stra­tion, lead­ing from the front. No change! The dri­ve and en­er­gy and fire in her bel­ly is still there and I leave you with as Michael Camps' words, said ad­mir­ing­ly many years ago, "Hazel smart, boy. That woman smart!" Hazel not on­ly smart. Hazel Brown is a boss woman!