Mabel Jones is a ‘Special Person’

Aug 02, 2020 News, Special Person

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For her tireless contribution to the health sector…

 

By Enid Joaquin

Possessed with the tenacity of a bulldog, Mabel Bernadette Jones, despite many challenges, never gave up on her dream of being a health professional.

But it is not often that people get to live their dream, exactly as they envisioned it. So those fortunate enough to experience this reality, are considered lucky or blessed.
Jones, our ‘Special Person’ today, is one of those persons who can be considered blessed to have lived her dream, to become a health worker who was privileged to care for many.
It was a dream she nurtured, ever since she was a little girl, and one for which she fought against all odds, to see its materialization.
“There is a saying that to be a nurse, you have to be a nurse from the heart,” and “I can personally attest to that, because I remember as a little girl, I would tell my mom that I wanted to become a nurse,” Jones shared during a recent interview.“I would dress like a nurse and have my little brother as the patient, and took care of whatever was ailing him, whether it was an injury, fever or cold. Then later, when my mom took me to the hospital, I would just sit and admire the nurses… I wanted to be like them,” she recalled.
These childhood musings and enactments, would later serve as the propelling force that catapulted Jones, to carve a niche for herself in the health sector.
It all started out, shortly after she graduated from high school. At the age of nineteen, she enrolled as an attendant with the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, which was at the time attached to the Linden Hospital Complex.

Part of her duties entailed monitoring patients who were transported to or from the hospital.
It was a little step towards the realization of her dream.
After her Ambulance Brigade stint, Jones landed a job at the Mackenzie Hospital as a dressing room attendant.
She worked in that position for five years, then subsequently quit to take care of her family.
But her first love kept beckoning her; it was like a bug that bit incessantly and therefore could not be ignored.
That, coupled with an ardent desire to serve her community, saw Jones applying to the regional administrative office for training as a Community Health Worker (CHW) in 1992.
Unfortunately, she had to forgo that programme because of family commitments. Her youngest child then, was just five, and the training for the position was being conducted in Region One. Being a part of the training would have meant her having to be away from home for four consecutive months.
However, the flames of her love never died, instead it burnt ever more brightly, and so, as her children got older, she continued in pursuit of her dream.
“I reapplied in 1996, but because of an unfortunate situation, I was again denied the opportunity,” she confided.
But not even this disappointment, could loosen the tenacious grip, with which Jones held her dream.
SACRIFICE
Her persistence eventually paid off in 1997, when she successfully got accepted to be a part of the CHW programme.

Reminiscing, she related that the training, as expected, took her away from her family for four straight months.
“I can remember the day I reached Moruca (Region One). I cried every day for three weeks.
I had wanted to return home right away, but I told myself, its a sacrifice I have to make to achieve my goal,” said Jones as she admitted, “it was really hard to leave my family but it was a sacrifice.”
As she reflected on that period of her life, she recounted too that, “My eldest daughter and my mom cried that day when I was leaving. It’s not easy to leave your family for four months with no communication. In those days, there was no land phones in the community and mobile phones were unheard of there.”
Communication, she recalled, was strictly through letters and they often took about a month, and then there were even times that they never even reached their destination.
In those days, being in Moruca was like missing all the necessary things in life, she recalled. There was no electricity and one would have to walk long distances to get clean creek water to use.
Despite these challenges, our ‘Special Person’ persevered and graduated in November 1997 as a CHW.
She, subsequently, in 1998 to be precise, did a month’s practical stint at the one Mile Health Centre. There, she was taught to administer vaccines to children.
Jones was later put in charge of the CHW Centre at Coomacka.
Working on her own, at the Centre was a bit challenging, she admitted.
However, it gave her tremendous satisfaction, as she was doing what she loved and at the same time, fulfilling the desire to serve her community.
She acknowledged, that managing the health post on her own was a huge responsibility, as every one looked to her for help.
“People would come to my home on holidays and weekend, because Coomacka is a small community where everybody knows everybody,” she noted.
Some of the services that she was tasked with providing to the community included primary health care such as outpatient services, infant clinic, family planning, antenatal care, postnatal care, management of chronic illnesses and school health.
CHALLENGES
Jones gave birth to the last of her six children in 2000 at the age of 43.
“Nonetheless that did not stop me from doing what I love, and in the year 2006, I was selected to do the single trained midwifery programme at the Charles Rosa School of Nursing. This was a plus for me, because I always felt the sky is the limit…and so in September of that year, I started classes. This was the first batch for the single trained midwifery programme in Region 10,” she revealed.
But being in classroom at the age of 43, with students much younger, was no easy task. “I had to wake up at 5:30 am to reach classroom for 7:30am,” she recalled.
“I thank God for my third daughter who supported me and took care of her little brother,” said Jones.
She added, “I remember the day before I wrote my first exam my mother died; this was a very sad time for me. Then on the day of my second exam, the bus broke down and so I was an hour late. Fortunately, I was given back my time.”
She recalled too that in her training to become a midwife, “I had to be committed and dedicated to be successful. Many nights, I went to bed early and woke up at 2am to study. Then there was the time when we had to get our 25 deliveries to write our finals…there was a fight to get deliveries on time. You had to know how to work around, to get your mother and monitor her, if not your batch mate could steal her! Nevertheless, I wrote my final exams in 2008 and was successful,” said Jones of her training.
SATISFACTION
These days, she gets ample satisfaction for her tireless efforts over the years when someone approaches her and say ‘nursie, the tablets you gave me helped, thanks’ or when a mother stops to ask ‘nursie, you remember me?’ and would eagerly inform ‘you deliver me’ or would show her a child and say ‘you deliver him or her’.
“Those are memories to cherish forever,” she related recently.
SUPPORT
However, balancing her career and family life was not always easy. The job, she recalled, entailed constant upgrades, which necessitated lots of time away from home.
In fact, one of those upgrades took her to the West Demerara Regional Hospital in Region Three for four months.
Jones remains eternally grateful to her husband Robert, her children and her late mother, who gave her all the necessary support during those periodic absences from home to facilitate her training.
Among the places she worked, during the course of her career, included Clinics at Canal No. One and Windsor Forest, both in Region Three.
Jones later returned to the Coomacka Health Centre as a trained midwife in February 2009.
She was assisted by another CHW until her retirement in October 2011.
But the work bug kept biting, and being one never to lose an opportunity, Jones continued working on contract to serve her community.
She continued with this arrangement until the end of 2018 and then she migrated to the United States.
The sadness of finally quitting her job here for good was tempered by the prospect of embracing a new and different way of life in another country.
In time for Christmas last year, she returned to her homeland for an “extended vacation” but the outbreak of the coronavirus and the eventually closure of borders have kept her put.
EARLY DAYS
Born to Agnes and John Vanslytman at Coomacka, Upper Demerara River, Jones attended the Coomacka Primary School, and later the Hooper High (later was renamed to Linden Foundation Secondary). She later tied the blissful wedding knot with Robert Jones and eventually became the proud mother of six.
She reflects with nostalgia, about growing up with her five siblings in the quaint little village, popularly known as ‘The Mines’, because of its proximity to some of the major mining sites in and around Linden.
“It was a very quiet village, no electricity, or potable water and transportation was by the Pullman (train). This provided free transportation for the company workers and family members,” she recalled.
She continued, “My most memorable time is swimming in the nearby Demerara River for hours when our mom and dad were not home and doing bush cook! I also remember walking approximately two miles every day to catch the mines workers’ bus at Montgomery (mines) to get to school in Linden. That was after the train stopped running.”
But things have changed from the days when Jones was a little girl. These days, there is no free transportation, as there is no longer the train, and the workers’ buses are now strictly for Bosai employees.
Electricity, which the community had enjoyed free of charge in the days when Demba managed the Bauxite Company, is also no longer free.
PET PEEVES
Jones is peeved that although there have been a great deal of developmental activities, in and around Linden, for some reason these have been slow to reach Coomacka.
There is presently still no potable water there and so residents have to depend on the rain, the river and creek, for this vital commodity, she lamented.
Even the lone primary school and health centre are lacking some basic amenities, she shared.
Her greatest desire presently, is for a proper road since the community has only one that is in severe disrepair. There is also the need for adequate drainage, as over the years, Coomacka has become susceptible to flooding.
CARING
But despite her concerns, she continues to be an especially caring and loving individual, who will forever be willing to nurture those within her community and even further afield. For touching the lives of many in the most compassionate way, today we at Kaieteur News believe Jones is worthy to be bestowed with our title of ‘Special Person’.

 

 

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