KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Hot flash­es, sleep­less nights, mood changes—for many women, per­i­menopause and menopause can feel like a silent strug­gle. But now, that’s be­gin­ning to change. The Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (FPATT) has launched a first-of-its-kind clin­ic de­signed to guide women through this phase of life with care, un­der­stand­ing, and ex­per­tise.

A Per­i­menopause and Menopause Clin­ic has been launched by the FPATT as part of a broad­er ini­tia­tive to ex­pand its ser­vices, sup­port­ing women through all stages of life. The ex­pan­sion in­cludes pri­ma­ry care, men­tal health, and oth­er well­ness ser­vices.

Dr Mon­i­ca Davis, board ad­vis­er to the FPATT, said the clin­ic was es­tab­lished in di­rect re­sponse to pub­lic de­mand.

“We con­duct­ed a pub­lic sur­vey, and based on those re­sults, it was clear that peo­ple want­ed and need­ed some­thing fo­cused on menopause,” she ex­plained.

Dr Davis not­ed that FPATT’s new up­per man­age­ment team has been dili­gent­ly work­ing to strength­en and im­prove ser­vices.

“We’ve been work­ing very hard to get things to where we want them, though of course, it takes time to reach that point,” she said.

The new clin­ic of­fers per­son­alised, one-on-one con­sul­ta­tions, pro­vid­ing guid­ance on health and well­ness through­out per­i­menopause and menopause.

“At present, the per­i­menopause clin­ic op­er­ates on­ly in Port-of-Spain. We are very priv­i­leged to have Dr Dur­ga Lyons, a qual­i­fied OBG­YN who is deeply pas­sion­ate about her work,” Dr Davis shared.

“Her clin­ics are held on Wednes­days, from 9 am to 1 pm. As our sur­vey showed, this was the most con­ve­nient time for clients.”

She said the con­sul­ta­tions are priced at $425.

“You can’t just walk in, see some­one, and get a pre­scrip­tion,” she said.

“The doc­tor needs to meet with the client, take a de­tailed med­ical his­to­ry, get ac­quaint­ed with where they are in their jour­ney, un­der­stand what they need and when, and de­ter­mine whether a pap smear or oth­er screen­ings are nec­es­sary.”

FPATT cur­rent­ly op­er­ates two clin­ics across the coun­try–one in Port-of-Spain at the cor­ner of Ox­ford and Char­lotte streets (623-5169) and an­oth­er at 50 Bertrand Street, San Fer­nan­do (652-2065).

“Both clin­ics are open Mon­day to Fri­day, from 7 am to 3 pm. We of­fer pap smears, screen­ings, and di­ag­nos­tics,” said Dr Davis.

“We are al­so de­vel­op­ing ex­cit­ing, af­ford­able pack­ages to make these es­sen­tial ser­vices more ac­ces­si­ble to un­der­served pop­u­la­tions.”

Dr Davis ex­plained that cur­rent sub­ven­tions–fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance pro­vid­ed by the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions–are lim­it­ed to youth-spe­cif­ic pro­grammes.

“We would re­al­ly like to ex­pand, but we can­not use funds for oth­er pur­pos­es be­yond the spe­cif­ic pro­gramme grants that we re­ceive,” she not­ed.

“If we ob­tain ad­di­tion­al grants or sub­ven­tions not tied to a spe­cif­ic project, we can ac­tu­al­ly start of­fer­ing per­i­menopause and menopause ser­vices in San Fer­nan­do.”

She added, “The more trac­tion we gain, the more we’ll be able to serve those who are un­der­served and, in some cas­es, not served at all.”

Since the clin­ic’s launch, the feed­back has been over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive.

“Women have said, ‘At last, we have some­thing,’ and many are al­ready ask­ing when we’ll open in San Fer­nan­do,” Dr Davis said.

“Our goal is to pro­mote healthy fam­i­ly plan­ning and fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships, to help peo­ple live hap­pi­er, health­i­er lives. The hap­pi­er you are, the health­i­er you be­come, the more you thrive, and the bet­ter you live.”

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ABOUT FPATT

FPATT is an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion that pro­motes sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health and rights to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies in Tr&T.

The as­so­ci­a­tion is the brain­child of Dr Beric Wright, an Eng­lish ex­pa­tri­ate who worked for the Shell Com­pa­ny in Trinidad.

Fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple of his moth­er, Mar­garet, who was an ac­tivist for sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive rights, Dr Wright start­ed the first fam­i­ly plan­ning clin­ic at Point Fortin on Sep­tem­ber 23, 1956, as a branch of the In­ter­na­tion­al Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion.

De­spite FPATT’s con­tro­ver­sial be­gin­nings, it quick­ly be­came clear to many that the peo­ple of T&T need­ed and want­ed the ser­vices of­fered by the as­so­ci­a­tion, and as a re­sult, the or­gan­i­sa­tion was able to at­tract sev­er­al well-re­spect­ed med­ical and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to the cause. At the same time, the clien­tele grew, as peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly women, came to un­der­stand the so­cial and eco­nom­ic im­por­tance of plan­ning their fam­i­lies and tak­ing care of their sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health.

By 1962, when T&T gained in­de­pen­dence, the as­so­ci­a­tion had es­tab­lished clin­ics at Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do and had full mem­ber­ship sta­tus with the In­ter­na­tion­al Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion.