Always keeping health in focus, Dr. Claudette Harry is a ‘Special Person’

Jul 03, 2016 News

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Pull Quote: “Watch your diet and know what your weight is supposed to be for your height…Exercise is very important to keep your muscles going. If there is an infection and there is a vaccine that can protect you, make sure you are covered. Don’t wait to get sick; know what you should or should not do.”
By Sharmain Grainger
Advancing the health of the human race has for many years been the passion of Dr. Claudette Harry. But she is probably best known for her contributions to the improvement of maternal and child health. In fact, she can easily be credited with putting in place many proactive measures in this regard that are still very evident in the public health sector.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Born Claudette Deretta Harry, on November 6, 1939, she remembers spending her early days in New Amsterdam, Berbice. She was the second and only girl of four children born to Alexandrina and Lloyd Sylvester Harry. Her parents are now both deceased.
Fondly referred to as ‘Derry’ (derived from her middle name), Dr. Harry recalled that nine years of her life were spent in Berbice, before her father moved the family to Georgetown because of his employment. Moving to the city was understandably a new experience that she adapted to quite easily.
Her schooling of course started in Berbice, but continued at the Bourda R. C. which was situated on Regent Street. But she didn’t complete her primary education at that School as, according to her, a few of her teachers there decided to establish their own school – British Guiana Education Trust. Her parents moved her to that new school.
It was while there she got a scholarship to attend The Bishops’ High School.
From a very young age she was sure that her career path was destined to be in the Sciences.
“I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do, but I knew I liked the Sciences, so that is what I did,” she recounted. Her focus was so trained on the Sciences that she didn’t particularly strive to excel in the core subject area of English.
This was observed by the then Bishops’ Head Mistress, who did not fail to give emphasis to this. Dr. Harry recalled that ahead of ascending to Sixth Form back in her schooling days, students had to be interviewed, and she was so engaged by her Head Mistress. The interview was pretty straightforward as, according to Dr. Harry, her English teaching-Head Mistress made it clear “if you come to do English in the Sixth Form I am going to resign…I suggest you do Science.”
“You’d think somebody telling me something like that would make me upset, but I was just amused…I just loved her,” Dr. Harry reminisced during a recent interview.

A pleasant smile formed on her face as she looked into the distance from the verandah of her Cedar Court, Lamaha Gardens home. She disclosed that she’d long accepted that science was her destiny. But at first she wasn’t quite sure which aspect to delve into.
“I wondered ‘with Science what I could do?’ I knew I didn’t want to be an engineer, I didn’t want to be an agriculturist, but then I thought ‘oh I could do Medicine,” Dr. Harry recounted.
She therefore needed to pursue studies at an overseas university. She was able to acquire a student loan and was off to the University of London which at the time had a campus in Jamaica (the current University of the West Indies, Mona Campus). The year was 1959.
“I felt very comfortable doing Medicine,” Dr. Harry informed as she reflected on her first interactions with the Jamaican people.
“I couldn’t understand a single word that was being said…I was asking ‘don’t they speak English?’ It took a while to get accustomed to the accent and understand what was being said,” said Dr. Harry of Jamaican Patois (creole language).
EMBRACING PUBLIC HEALTH
Upon completing her studies and internship in Jamaica she returned to Guyana in 1967 as a qualified medical practitioner. She quite naturally grooved into the field of Paediatrics with an equal inclination for Obstetrics and Gynaecology, at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
“Having gone through all the various rotations at University in Jamaica, I just figured that I wanted to work with kids…Usually when you do Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, it’s a flow…children are born and you take care of them throughout,” Dr. Harry explained.
She was dedicated to treating children in the Paediatric ward until 1970, when she received some sound advice that would fashion the rest of her involvement in the field of health care. Dr. Harry recalled working closely with a Consultant Paediatrician, Dr. Robert Baird, while attached to the Paediatric ward. Dr. Baird, she disclosed, was asked to take up the position of Chief Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health, but before he left he requested a meeting with her. He recognised that she was a very promising medical practitioner.
During that meeting, Dr. Harry recalled being told, “‘it doesn’t make sense for you to sit there and wait for children to get sick and be admitted to the ward for you to take care and make them better. What you need to do is go into public health and work towards preventing the children from getting sick in the first place’…I knew instantly that was a good idea.”
Dr. Harry was eventually able to acquire a Fellowship from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) that would allow her to pursue a Master’s in Public Health at a university in Michigan, United States. She was on course to gaining qualifications to specialise in Maternal and Child Health.
But even before she started the Public Health Programme, Dr. Harry recalled that the then Minister of Health, requested that she share her expertise in the Caribbean island of Nevis. Nevis, at the time, required support, as its only two medical doctors were about to leave the island.
“They (Nevis) were asking around the Caribbean for help, so Minister called me and she said since you are leaving anyhow, I have volunteered you to go and work in Nevis,” Dr. Harry said, as she pointed out that it was three months of intense but very valuable experience.
“It wasn’t just maternal and child health, I literally had to do everything there, but it was really a good experience. I appreciated it very much,” she noted.
IMPROVING HEALTH CARE
Following her training in Public Health she was appointed Director of Maternal and Child in the Ministry of Health, and was able to examine a number of issues with a view to improving the delivery of health care. Understandably her main focuses were immunization and maternal care, so as to reduce the incidence of infant and maternal mortality.
Among her strategic tactics was reaching out to the various regions.
“We had a very good thing going. At least three times a year, sometimes four, we went out into a different area. It was not just a health team going out…we also had people from social services, agriculture, education, and we looked at possibilities for improvements, including training for midwives.
“We went out as a team so we looked at all of the needs of a community,” recalled Dr. Harry. But a key measure employed by the then Director of Maternal and Child Health was to collaborate with the Ministry’s health sciences education and nutrition departments. This move, according to her, was seen as an essential factor to improve maternal and child care.
“I think I was able to help make a considerable difference in maternal and child health because of that,” said a modest Dr. Harry who continued in that area with laudable results, until 1978.
By this time the Ministry of Health recognised the need to improve the general delivery of health care. At the time the services offered by the Ministry were centralised and there was an evident need for them to be decentralised in order to improve care.
Funding to undertake this decentralisation was readily forthcoming from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Dr. Harry was selected to head this venture – regionalisation of the health sector. She was behind the development of regional health facilities at Kumaka, Leonora and Charity, among other areas, and even was a key player behind the introduction of the Community Health Workers (CHW) and Multi-Purpose technician programmes.
The regionalisation project came to an end in 1982, and Dr. Harry was soon after charged with overseeing all that she had started in terms of decentralising the delivery of health care. To this end, she was named the first Director of Regional Health Services.
But by 1985 the Health Ministry saw the need for a Medical School and an ever-efficient Dr. Harry was chosen to head that venture.
She was part of a two-member team that travelled to Holland to gain training to set the medical programme in motion. Dr. Harry upon her return was seconded to the University of Guyana as the Medical Director of the Medical School which straightway proved to be yet another successful undertaking.
A JOURNEY WITH PAHO
However, Dr. Harry opted to leave the public health sector in 1990 after an opportunity to work with PAHO presented itself. It was in this same year she became a widow when her husband of 16 years passed away. She immersed herself more in her work.
During her tenure with PAHO she was able to share her professional expertise in a few territories. She was at first sent to Trinidad, where she was tasked with the development of various programmes, and she also delved a bit into HIV/AIDS work. Three years later, Dr. Harry was appointed PAHO’s Resident Representative to The Bahamas. She remained there for six years and, according to her, “that was a very good working experience, because I was involved in all aspects of health, from chronic diseases to maternal and child.”
After her stint in The Bahamas she, still in the employ of PAHO, was asked to return to Trinidad.
But by November 2001, Dr. Harry was ready for retirement.
OTHER INVOLVEMENTS
Guyana beckoned, and she returned in 2002. Dr. Harry has ever since been involved in consultancy work for PAHO and the United Nations. She has also headed a number of crucial projects, including the Safe Injection Project initiatives during the period 2004 – 2005 and the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) under the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) between the years 2006 and 2009. She also gave a helping hand to the setting up of the National Reference Laboratory, and is also credited with developing the first and second editions of the Standard Treatment Guidelines for primary health care for the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Harry also volunteers her time to the Kidney Foundation of Guyana, which has a mission to promote public awareness and prevention of kidney failure. She currently serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the Foundation.
But Dr. Harry doesn’t simply preach health. Her lifestyle oozes healthy living. She exercises five days per week, and not only grows but partakes in foods that add vitality to her anatomy. “Things like dark green leafy vegetables such as callaloo, spinach will give you iron. My haemoglobin is somewhere around 13 and I don’t drink any iron tablets.” She also has several bearing fruit trees in her yard that she was only too happy to show them off. She reminded that “it is always better to grow your own.”
Dr. Harry cautions “Watch your diet and know what your weight is supposed to be for your height…Exercise is very important to keep your muscles going. If there is an infection and there is a vaccine that can protect you, make sure you are covered. Don’t wait to get sick; know what you should or should not do.”
The good doctor has also been equally dedicated, since 2003, to the Rotary Club of  Georgetown Central, which offers crucial community service. In fact she served as president during the period 2011 – 2012.
But ahead of being inducted into the Rotary Club, she was already very involved in community service.
Dr. Harry took upon herself the task of teaching some of her neighbourhood’s children, an undertaking that was spurred by her recognition that some of them were not literate.
“Some of the kids in the area wanted mangoes from my tree, and I told them nothing is for free. They of course thought I meant they had to work for me, but I wanted them to be able to read and write…that was the work I wanted them to do,” Dr. Harry reflected.
Her yard soon after became the venue for classes, and she was nurturing children in a whole other way. “The few that started, they brought others, and pretty soon some very young ones were coming, but I couldn’t deal with them all…I knew my limitations, so I focused on those mainly at the Common Entrance level.”
Her work was recognised and before long she was invited to join the Rotary Club, which has not only been taking health but also education measures to many people, particularly in the Sophia community.
Though dedicated to so many endeavours over the years, Dr. Harry has always found time for family and those close to her. Her Creator is no exception. She has for a number of years worshipped at the Roman Catholic Church, Our Lady of Fatima, situated at the corner of Robb Street and Shiv Chanderpaul Drive.
Interestingly enough, our ‘Special Person’ even has the aptitude for singing, which she showcases as a member of the church choir.

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