Joy St John wanted to be a doctor from age six.
It took her 20 years to get into medical school, succeeding after nine times of applying.
On October 16, Barbados’ former Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMO) will occupy the chair at the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Geneva headquarters as assistant director general for climate change and other determinants of health. It is a new position created by the WHO and she was specially selected from among several other likely candidates internationally.
On her last day on the job Friday, the soft-spoken doctor, who has been Barbados’ CMO for the past 12 years, said as she was preparing to leave that office for the last time: “The portfolio is a gift to me because public health is my passion and this whole issue of things outside of health and how they affect health and how we work with other sectors to ensure optimum health is something we have been doing in Barbados for a long time.
“I was called [by the WHO] on a day early in September and I was asked if I was interested. I was not clear which assistant director general position I would get, but I was up to any challenge.”
The journey from qualifying as a doctor in 1991 to the prestigious position she is about to assume on the international health stage has taken her through Barbados’ public health care system in which she has had an outstanding record.
St John said climate and how it affects health “is something that Barbados has been looking at for many years”, being once the only country in a global project on climate change and health.
In her work across the island’s polyclinic system, she acted as senior medical officer of health for south, which afforded the kind of exposure that she said gave her a well rounded understanding of Barbados’ public health issues.
It was her “heaviest portfolio”.
“Looking after polyclinics, the improvement of the doctors, scheduling of doctors, immunisation manager in charge of the dental programme, the school eye programme, the disabilities and nutrition – it is an extremely challenging post and I loved it.”
One of the many initiatives for which she is credited is the fast-track system for patients attending the Winston Scott Polyclinic.
St John is driven by challenges. She had no intention of applying for the post of chief medical officer when it became vacant, but “prevailed upon” by people who thought she was well suited for the job, she eventually submitted an application “on the last day” and landed the job.
“Chief medical officer is the kind of job that you have to produce, so I had to learn fast,” she said, and looking back, there has been “a lot of accomplishment” both personally and in the Ministry of Health.
“The ministry has international recognition for best practices in non-communicable diseases programming; HIV programming; it has won awards multiple times for the immunisation programme,” St John mused. She also pointed to the international recognition gained by the Barbados Drug Service and the island’s first population-based Registry for Chronic diseases, Heart Attack, Stroke and Cancer, with many countries following Barbados’ lead in various areas of health programmes.
It was not a boast when she said: “My career has seen contributions at the national, subregional – as in CARICOM, the Americas and global level.
“It has been a privilege and a challenge, but I love a challenge.”
St John was chairman of the Pan American Health Organisation’s PAHO in the 21st Century, in which a lot of reform in that organisation was penned with Barbados at the helm. She also told of working “hard” together with Norway and Russia on the push for international declarations on non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
In 2014 the Barbadian doctor spent several months at the WHO office in New York as a senior advisor supporting the co-facilitators of the UN General Assembly involved in the high-level meeting on NCDs.
In the Caribbean she was director of disease surveillance prevention and control at the Caribbean Public Health Agency.
The Libran, who turns 57 on September 13, believes God has again had a hand in the direction her life is about to take. Hers she says has been a life of challenges, but she is assured her faith has seen her through every one “without a doubt”.
“I would say that balancing a professional life has been a challenge, because I work very hard, very long, sometimes ungodly hours.
“This challenge that presents itself to me now has come at a good time,” said St John, the wife of Geoffrey Carrington, to whom she has been married for 28 years, and the mother of Barbados scholar Lisa, 24, and 22-year-old Kim, a third-year veterinary medicine student.
Her children are now adults, unlike in those early days when as a PAHO fellow she took her then seven-month-old and two-year-old daughters with her to Jamaica “because I had no intention of leaving my children behind.”
Evidence of the lingering pain of losing her father Bruce St John during that time, and the more recent loss of her mother Ruby St John, who went to Jamaica to support her during those days, was seen in the tears that began to form as she recalled those experiences. (GC)
