Matthew Chin

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

At work, she us­es her eyes to treat her pa­tients’ ail­ments, but at home, she pays close at­ten­tion to the de­tails of the sto­ries she paints. De­bra Bartholomew is a doc­tor, singer, teacher, and artist who goes be­yond the scope of her pro­fes­sion to help oth­ers tra­verse the men­tal ob­sta­cles of a world sat­u­rat­ed with cliques and sta­tus quo.

The 52-year-old doc­tor with­in oph­thal­mology who hails from Pe­tit Val­ley has been in the pro­fes­sion for years, help­ing oth­ers, both young and old, to un­der­stand eye health and the dif­fer­ences that make them spe­cial. She works at the Caribbean Eye In­sti­tute and the Caribbean Vit­re­ous & Reti­na Surgery Ltd.

Al­though a mas­ter of spot­ting and treat­ing vi­sion-re­lat­ed is­sues, Dr Bartholomew has strug­gled with a dev­il that the world of oph­thal­mol­o­gy could not de­feat. With the pass­ing of her grand­fa­ther when she was a young girl, anx­i­ety in­trud­ed on her life, af­fect­ing her well-be­ing. She us­es art as a ther­a­peu­tic out­let for deal­ing with the grief caused by loss, most re­cent­ly from the death of her sis­ter, and the anx­i­ety that comes from it. She cit­ed her grand­moth­er as the source of what would lat­er be­come her ther­a­py for the volatil­i­ty of life–macramé, a style of knot ty­ing go­ing back to the As­syr­i­an and Baby­lon­ian civil­i­sa­tions.

Col­lect­ing in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence as far as Asia and North Africa, work­ing in the field, she has found that dis­crim­i­na­tion to­wards the autis­tic “is the same” as it would be in any place of the world, in­clud­ing T&T. Her el­dest son, Rowan McEwen, 20, di­ag­nosed with autism, has ex­pe­ri­enced the lash­es of dis­crim­i­na­tion through­out his life, be­ing de­nied ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion at both Libyan and In­di­an schools. How­ev­er, it was back home in T&T that her son would be ac­cept­ed by one of the coun­try’s most pres­ti­gious sec­ondary schools: Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (QRC).

“I was told my son would not last a day in sec­ondary school. We’ve lived in sev­er­al coun­tries: In­dia, Libya, then the UK. The British School of Tripoli and the Amer­i­can School of Bom­bay did not ac­cept my child. When I came to QRC, Mr Si­mon summed it up in the best way pos­si­ble, ‘We don’t have a 20 per cent, so I have no guar­an­tees in terms of where your son may end up, but I can guar­an­tee you this—if QRC is the school he pass­es for it is here that he be­longs,’” she said.

Rais­ing an autis­tic child has changed Dr Bartholomew’s life, teach­ing her pa­tience, and com­pas­sion, and ig­nit­ing a dri­ve with­in her to see every­one through the lens of the dig­ni­ty in­trin­sic to their hu­man­i­ty. She wants Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to ap­pre­ci­ate their own beau­ty through self-love.

Cur­rent­ly, she is ex­hibit­ing one of her paint­ings at the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral for its 200th an­niver­sary in which funds are be­ing raised for its struc­tur­al restora­tion.

Q&A

Q: Why did you be­come a doc­tor with­in oph­thal­mology?

The rea­son for do­ing med­i­cine was to help peo­ple.

Q: The first time we met, you were wear­ing a neck­lace made of rope. It caught my eye im­me­di­ate­ly. How did you get in­tro­duced to this craft?

When I was ten years old I lost my grand­fa­ther. I didn’t quite know why it hap­pened. It start­ed a To­ba­go love with anx­i­ety—a con­stant com­pan­ion but a very much un­want­ed one. I didn’t re­alise at the time that what it was was a form of PTSD. And that is some­thing that we try to sweep un­der the car­pet, es­pe­cial­ly in the Caribbean.

When my younger son, Adri­an, was about to grad­u­ate this year, I went look­ing for a neck­lace, a state­ment piece. It oc­curred to me right there and then, I thought to my­self, ‘What about us­ing a macramé neck­lace?’ My grand­moth­er taught me how to do knot-mak­ing; it was an amaz­ing form of ther­a­py.

Q: Are you plan­ning to sell these neck­laces?

Yes! One per­son said, ‘It’s so beau­ti­ful,’ and I was like, ‘What!’ So I made an­oth­er one and an­oth­er one and an­oth­er one. Peo­ple have ac­tu­al­ly bought a few. (For World Sight Day) I want­ed to wear some­thing blue. And so I de­cid­ed to make a blue neck­lace the morn­ing be­fore I came ... be­fore you saw me. It’s ther­a­py but al­so art and fash­ion which is my thing.

Q: It’s not on­ly knot­ting that you do, you’re al­so a singer and painter. What work have you ex­hib­it­ed this year?

Ear­li­er this year I did some pieces for the Catholic News, us­ing art to tell the sto­ry of the Sta­tions of the Cross but to bring it in­to peo­ple’s con­scious­ness be­cause we tend to think of the Sta­tions of the Cross as some­thing that hap­pened 2,000 years ago. I re­told the Sta­tions of the Cross us­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s back­drop of so­ci­etal is­sues. One of my favourite pieces is of Je­sus falling for the first time at In­de­pen­dence Square; he falls out of a wheel­chair due to the lack of ac­cess to the dis­abled …

Q: When we see dis­crim­i­na­tion, do you be­lieve it stems from a lack of ed­u­ca­tion?

Yes, it does. One of the things that my old­er son (Rowan) and I de­cid­ed to do was to de­vel­op some com­ic strips to ed­u­cate oth­ers. At present, QRC has a young man who’s legal­ly blind and his moth­er chose QRC for her son (Aiden) be­cause of my son. When (QRC) had a cross-coun­try race, I was there as the med­ical sup­port. Two boys came and said they think some­thing was wrong with him, he’s hav­ing a melt­down. I came to him and asked if he was okay. I asked what’s hap­pen­ing and Aiden said, ‘Oh, I just want­ed to know if it was time for me to go back up to my class?’ What struck me at that mo­ment was how lit­tle we knew about each in­di­vid­ual who has a dis­abil­i­ty.

Rapid-fire ques­tions

Q: Favourite drink?

A: Sor­rel.

Q: Favourite book?

A: Cote Ci Cote La.

Q: One thing you’d change about the world?

A: There needs to be more ed­u­ca­tion on hu­man­i­ty.

Q: A coun­try you’d want to vis­it?

A: France or Italy.

Q: Favourite In­di­an food?

A: Cur­ry, hands down.

Q: One sur­pris­ing fact about Dr Bartholomew?

A: She has a very dirty mind.