irietrini@yahoo.com

we pray for health

• I would never wish sickness on someone.
• And considering how sensitive we all are about our health here, how uncomfortable we are with illness.
• We now have to put the health of our Prime Minister in the hands of a bunch of commies.
• Where is our First World health care system now when our Prime Minister needs it?

Oh, tell me where

the answer lies.

Is it in the notebook

behind your eyes?

When your decision

comes to view,

I’ll be watchin’ my TV,

and it’ll be watchin’ you.

—Speakin Out, Neil Young

I feel like I need to issue a disclaimer. I would never wish sickness on someone.

And considering how sensitive we all are about our health here, how uncomfortable we are with illness, I should just leave well enough alone and not make any comment.

Still I have to wonder at Papa Patos’ revelations in the middle of the post-Cabinet briefing about Cuban doctors having discovered a malignant tumor in his kidney.

One would think he would be a little shame-faced, in these belly-banning times, to be so unapologetically not using the local health system when so many of us have no other choice.

But sickness is a hell of a thing. It’s the trump card. 

The one to beat back all cockfight. 

Like sometimes when you wish that your mother would just disappear but you just about fall apart if she has so much as a headache.

It’s particularly sad because we on the other side of the Caribbean Sea are so often urged to feel sorry for our Cuban brothers and sisters who labour under an unfair and undemocratic government. 

We, who have learned to ape the anti-socialist rhetoric now have to put the health of our Prime Minister in the hands of a bunch of commies.

God provides many great blessings.

Like Cuban doctors. 

Like reporters who don’t question revelations on the state of the Prime Minister’s health although he’s hardly ever had anything to say about that.

Perhaps he sometimes thinks it is best that we don’t see him as human. 

Because everybody needs to have a super hero. 

Everybody needs to believe that their leaders are above human complaints like nagging self doubt or constipation or thinning hair.

We want those who lead us to be above reproach. 

To have toots that smells of roses. To never be ill. 

To never die even if their mortal flesh returns to dust.

But God is good. God is also a Trini. 

God would not let his chosen be stricken by illness. 

This is why God provides well for us. This is why we have oil and gas. 

I find it most interesting that our Prime Minister has so little faith in our own health system that he has to fly all the way to Cuba, where all the buildings in Havana are wood and stone crumbling and weathering in the sting of the sea blast coming over the Malecon.

Where is our First World health care system now when our Prime Minister needs it?

I’ve met local oncologists trying their best to cope with the increases in cancers.

I’ve read EIAs that list cancer as a possible side effect of industrial pollution and heavy gas based industrialisation.

Particularly in populations where there is a high incidence of diabetes, which is higher among Africans, Indians and indigenous populations.

I know cancer survivors and I remember the doctors in the Radiology Centre who did their best for my own granny.   

I try to eat broccoli and do yoga and take lots of deep breaths, because Jah alone knows I have no rich uncle to ask for money if I were to get sick and with peak oil coming at a speed, who knows if I will be able to afford to run to Cuba or if after Fidel goes his way they won’t stamp on education and healthcare in the interest of preserving democracy.

I wonder if it is a slap in the face to all those who can’t afford to go away for treatment. 

Who watch their relatives die every day from treatable conditions. 

Who have paid their health surcharge all their lives but can’t get a prosthetic hip for their replacement surgery because somebody hasn’t signed a cheque.

This is progress. 

We pray for a speedy recovery. We pray for health.

We pray that our money will ensure that he is well again. 

We pray that he will spare a thought when his health returns to 100 per cent for all the people who can’t afford to go away and get medical care. 

Amen.