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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Linda Baboolal remembered as a woman of many firsts

by

Gail Alexander
2133 days ago
20190912
July 15, 2019 Former Senate President Dr Linda Baboolal, second from right, pose for a picture with past and present Speakers and Senate Presidents, from left, Wade Mark, Nizam Mohammed, Barendra Sinanan, President of the Senate, Christie Kangaloo, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Brigid Annisette-George and Timothy Hamel-Smith during the opening ceremony of the 44th annual conference of the Caribbean, Americas and the Atlantic Region of the Commonwealth Parliament Association held at the Hyatt Regency.

July 15, 2019 Former Senate President Dr Linda Baboolal, second from right, pose for a picture with past and present Speakers and Senate Presidents, from left, Wade Mark, Nizam Mohammed, Barendra Sinanan, President of the Senate, Christie Kangaloo, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Brigid Annisette-George and Timothy Hamel-Smith during the opening ceremony of the 44th annual conference of the Caribbean, Americas and the Atlantic Region of the Commonwealth Parliament Association held at the Hyatt Regency.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

A woman of many “firsts” and a per­son of great for­ti­tude.

That’s how friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers re­mem­bered for­mer PNM MP and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Dr Lin­da Sav­it­ri Ba­boolal who died ear­ly yes­ter­day at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex. She was 78.

Ba­boolal had been ward­ed at the hos­pi­tal for the past three weeks, be­ing treat­ed for pneu­mo­nia. How­ev­er, her po­lit­i­cal col­leagues were shocked to learn of her death yes­ter­day.

“She and Patrick Man­ning would now be open­ing their own po­lit­i­cal par­ty up there, (in heav­en),” her hus­band Michael told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Man­ning, who died in Ju­ly 2016 from acute blood can­cer, launched Ba­boolal’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer with the PNM where she served as Barataria/San Juan MP, the first fe­male Sen­ate Pres­i­dent and the first woman to act as T&T’s Pres­i­dent. She was al­so the PNM’s first fe­male chair­man.

Her hus­band Michael, who is al­so a doc­tor, was with the cou­ple’s five chil­dren yes­ter­day. He ex­plained that Ba­boolal had got­ten the flu three weeks ago and it had wors­ened.

“She had short­ness of breath and an X-ray showed she had pneu­mo­nia. She was tak­en to Mt Hope but it didn’t help. Even when she was in­tu­bat­ed and giv­en oxy­gen, she de­te­ri­o­rat­ed,”

“They al­so did a tra­cheoto­my to help her breathe, but that didn’t work ei­ther as her lungs had been im­pact­ed by the virus. This must have strained her heart al­so. It’s a huge loss, but she made her mark with us all—fam­i­ly and coun­try, God rest her,” he said.

A tra­cheoto­my is an in­ci­sion in the wind­pipe sur­gi­cal­ly made to re­lieve an ob­struc­tion to breath­ing.

Siparia-born Ba­boolal was the el­dest of five girls and a boy for her par­ents Solomon and Sylvia Mo­han. She fol­lowed her child­hood dream to be­come a doc­tor, at­tend­ing Man­i­to­ba Uni­ver­si­ty and al­so train­ing at the Roy­al Col­lege of Sur­geons and Physi­cians in Ire­land.

She and her en­tire fam­i­ly at one time had been res­i­dent in Ire­land where her hus­band was al­so do­ing his med­ical train­ing. They had five chil­dren, three girls and two boys.

Ba­boolal start­ed off her med­ical ca­reer in T&T as an in­tern at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Po­lit­i­cal­ly, she was first ap­proached by the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR)—when that par­ty was be­ing formed—to be one of their elec­tion can­di­dates. She con­sid­ered it but de­clined due to time con­straints.

In 1991, she was again ap­proached to be a can­di­date, this time by Man­ning’s PNM, and she ac­cept­ed. Ba­boolal won the Barataria/San Juan seat, en­ter­ing the Cab­i­net (1992- 1995). She served at var­i­ous points as Health Min­is­ter and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter

She lost Barataria/San Juan in the 1995 gen­er­al elec­tion to the UNC’s Dr Fuad Khan. When the PNM was in Op­po­si­tion, Ba­boolal was the par­ty’s chair­man from 1996 to 2000. How­ev­er, when the PNM re­turned to Gov­ern­ment in 2002, Ba­boolal was elect­ed Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, serv­ing un­til 2007.

Post-pol­i­tics, she was ac­tive as a med­ical doc­tor and con­tin­ued do­ing vol­un­tary work to­wards bet­ter health in T&T. She al­so had a spe­cial in­ter­est in the pro­mo­tion of women in all as­pects of life, es­pe­cial­ly de­ci­sion mak­ing. She was al­so ac­tive­ly in­volved in char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions, es­pe­cial­ly with the drug ad­dic­tion re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre at Mount St Bene­dict.

In Sep­tem­ber 2017, at age 76, Ba­boolal had triple by-pass surgery at Mt Hope. She told Guardian Me­dia then, in her usu­al­ly strong voice, that she didn’t have a heart at­tack but had surgery to pre­vent the pos­si­bil­i­ty. She said she was feel­ing al­right and was tak­ing it easy.

Ba­boolal was a very proud par­ent and grand­moth­er of 11. All of her chil­dren—in­clud­ing those from abroad—were with her when she died ear­ly yes­ter­day. One of her sons, Raj, griev­ed about his fi­nal good­bye, stat­ing in a Face­book post, that his moth­er died at 4.44 am.

Her hus­band said her fu­ner­al will like­ly be next Wednes­day since some grand­chil­dren are com­ing from abroad.

Apart from be­ing an avid read­er with an in­ter­est in cook­ing and trav­el­ling, the late Dr Ba­boolal had al­so en­joyed post­ing in­for­ma­tion, pho­tos, say­ings and oth­er snip­pets on her Face­book page. Her daugh­ter Mag­gie Pa­tience con­firmed her pas­time.

One piece the late Dr Ba­boolal post­ed on Au­gust 20 was a po­em of re­mem­brance at­trib­uted to US po­et David M Ro­mano, If To­mor­row Starts With­out Me.

Known on so­cial me­dia as a po­em meant to com­fort loved ones af­ter a per­son dies, the vers­es end, “ So when to­mor­row starts with­out me, Don’t think we’re far apart, For every time you think of me, I’m right here, in your heart. “


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