Dr Mahabir merely a figure head

THE EDITOR: With the news of the death of Dr Winston Mahabir, I recall an incident which occurred some 45 years ago when he was practising medicine from an office in Mucurapo Street, San Fernando. In those days ministers of government were permitted to engage in private practice. It was in May 1958 that I took my ill father to see him as a patient. He examined my father and gave me a note with instructions to take to the then San Fernando Colonial Hospital for him to be admitted there. He remained at the hospital for over a week and then, on May 26, 1958, he died at the institution reportedly from hepatitis which I gather is a curable ailment. A few days after his death, I went back to see Dr Mahabir and told him that my father had died. He expressed shock at the news and said he would investigate the matter. When I next went to see him, he informed me that his investigation revealed that the medical personnel at the hospital had failed to act on his medical instructions. I asked if anything could be done as he was the Minister of Health.

He responded in a rather pained manner and to my amazement that he had sent my father to the hospital in his capacity as a medical practitioner and not as a Minister of Health. On reflection it dawned on me that despite his academic and platform brilliance and his good intentions, Dr Mahabir was merely a figurehead in the PNM Government and totally impotent to exercise any authority. It was a question of the tail wagging the dog. It was well known that personnel at the hospital constituted PNM Party Group number two of three in San Fernando. It wielded great clout. My contact with Dr Winston Mahabir was merely a year and a half after the PNM assumed office in 1956 and two months after Dr Williams’ infamous “hostile and recalcitrant minority” speech publicly attacking Indo-Trinidadians. For Dr Mahabir the writing must have been on the wall very early and his departure seemed to have been only a matter of time. I am not sure whether his relationship with Dr Williams influenced him to study psychiatry when he migrated to Canada.

TREVOR SUDAMA