The Tribune

By LARRY SMITH

A recent comment by veteran columnist Nicki Kelly is worth repeating. “All the Bahamas ever does is talk about what it is going to do, but somehow never manages to actually get anything done,” she said.

I will cite one clear example to document this comment. But there are many others – energy reform and waste disposal spring first to mind.

My example is the revitalisation of the city of Nassau. Once the centre of commerce and life for the entire country, the capital has been in a state of decline since at least the early 1980s.

Based on my writing over the past decade, here is a summary timeline:

1980s - Downtown interests (led by Norman Solomon) hired a US-based community developer, the Rouse Company, to draw up suggestions for the revitalisation of Nassau. They did not have enough political capital to get to first base.

Early 1990s - Architects Jackson Burnside and Pat Rahming proposed designs for five public waterfront sites on the island’s north shore “as a catalyst (for) the redevelopment of the city”.

Late 1990s - The Nassau Tourism Development Board focused on the redevelopment of “Historic Nassau” and Jackson Burnside produced another planning study.

Early 2000s - A private sector downtown improvement programme was launched to build on Burnside’s recommendations, and workshops were held on the benefits of heritage tourism.

Mid-2000s - The Nassau Economic Development Commission (a public-private partnership) was formed and US design firm, EDAW, hired to develop a master plan for the city. The Hotel Corporation was to become a Tourism Development Corporation to guide the whole process, and shipping operations were to be removed from Bay Street. Consultants were hired by the private sector to develop a business plan for the city.

Late 2000s - In one of the few achievements of this saga, container shipping was finally moved from the congested downtown area to Arawak Cay. The new port was set up as a public-private partnership and by all accounts has been a great success.

2014 - The government reveals that Chinese interests are acquiring downtown property and will produce a new master plan for the city. Nothing more has been heard of this plan.

2015 - The government launched “Sustainable Nassau Initiative” with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank.

Today - Perry Christie (who commissioned the EDAW master plan in 2004) says this new “plan of action” will not just sit on a shelf. “This plan represents the first step in the formation of creative solutions to our urban environment.”

According to Jackson Burnside’s widow, Pam, despite all this planning and talking “nobody is looking at the bigger picture. It is up to us, the people, to become the real stakeholders and agitate for action to make it happen.”

Pam is one of the leading lights in an initiative called Creative Nassau that was formed in 2008 by her late husband. Nassau has been designated as a Creative City of Crafts and Folk Arts by UNESCO. And the group’s goal is to enhance “awareness, appreciation and celebration of Bahamian art, culture and heritage.”

But as far as planning goes, Pam says “nothing will be achieved until the needs of the people are met, so that we have a reason to return to the downtown. Then we invite visitors to come and celebrate with us.”

From the ‘Crazy Hill’ to Sandilands

If you’ve ever been curious about the history of mental health in the Bahamas, pick up a copy of Dr John Spencer’s new book ‘From the Crazy Hill to Sandilands’.

I should add that it’s not a history - although it includes a lot of historical background. And neither is it an autobiography – although it recounts personal stories.

The book records some of the experiences of a young doctor in the Bahamian health services half a century ago, first as a medical officer at the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) and later as a psychiatrist at Sandilands.

Now in his 80s, John Spencer qualified as a physician in 1960 and married his high school sweetheart, Pat Denison, in their home town of Sheffield, England.

Within weeks they were in Nassau, after he was recruited by Chief Medical Officer E H Murcott. But in 1964, at the PMH outpatient department, he had an epiphany, after witnessing the arrival of 20 mental patients from Sandilands for routine chest x-rays.

“It was at this moment that I first became acutely aware of that unexplored and neglected branch of medicine called psychiatry,” he wrote. “As I helped each patient in front of the x-ray machine, I was suddenly possessed by an intense curiosity to know more about those who were afflicted by these strange illnesses.”

A few months later he left Nassau for postgraduate training in psychiatry at the University of Sheffield. He returned in 1969 to work with the legendary Dr Henryk Podlewski at Sandilands Hospital.

Podlewski (who died last year at the age of 94) was a fascinating character and a true medical pioneer in the Bahamas. As a student in Warsaw, he experienced first-hand the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, which started the Second World War.

He and many others fled the country to join the free Polish forces led by General Władysław Sikorski in France. Podlewski and other Polish troops were deployed to the Middle East, under French and later British command.

Later in the war, the Polish government-in-exile encouraged young professionals to finish their university training, and Podlewski ended up at the University of Edinburgh as the war came to an end, rooming with a friend, Stan Pogonoski.

After the war, Pogonoski’s English wife became secretary to Sir Robert Neville, who was then Governor of the Bahamas. And in 1956 Pogonoski invited Henry to join him in Nassau.

This was a marvellously serendipitous event for the Bahamas. Podlewski was the first qualified psychiatrist ever to practice in the Bahamas. And he was instrumental in transforming mental health treatment in the country and planning the first psychiatric hospital, in eastern New Providence.

Before 1956, disturbed patients were confined to a prison-like compound on a rise adjacent to the old Bahamas General Hospital. At the time, it was a popular pastime to climb to the top of the water tower for a good view of the lunatics on the ‘Crazy Hill’ below.

Another of Spencer’s psychiatric colleagues then was Dr Tim McCartney, who wrote a popular book in the 1970s, ‘Neuroses in the Sun’. It contained his personal recollection of the ‘Crazy Hill’ as a teenager, which Spencer repeats in his book. “They were nearly always screaming, hurling obscenities, banging their heads against the bars, or pathetically shouting for help and imploring people to release them. Occasionally boys would throw rocks at them, egged on by amused onlookers.”

It was Podlewski who almost single-handedly changed all this - supervising the transfer of 140 ‘Crazy Hill’ patients to the new 200-bed Sandilands Hospital at Fox Hill. The move coincided with the advent of new drugs for mental illness, and the introduction of psychiatric training for local nurses.

According to Spencer, “Henry exercised great patience and skill to gradually transform the old asylum-style practices into a modern psychiatric service. He educated the public to regard patients as curable rather than lunatics who had to be locked up forever. He also played a major role in drafting new mental health legislation.”

One of Spencer’s most intriguing tales about Sandilands features a delusional Haitian migrant who believed he was possessed by an evil spirit sent by a powerful zombie in Haiti.

In April 1971 something unusual happened: for no apparent reason his Haitian patient made a sudden overnight recovery, assuring everyone that something “very good” had happened.

Newspaper headlines the next day reported the death of President François Duvalier, or Papa Doc as he was called, at the relatively young age of 64. Duvalier had ruled Haiti for 14 years with the help of voodoo priests.

“He had actually died on the very day of Willie’s unexplained recovery,” Spencer wrote. “This was an incredible coincidence, and when I showed him the newspaper headlines, he grasped my hands and said: ‘Oui, oui. I know. Very good, very good’.”

Spencer left the Bahamas just prior to Independence, and practised in Canada, France, England and Australia, where he eventually settled. He has published widely in medical journals and is the author of two books on psycho-social topics.

He contributed to the development of mental health services in rural areas of Western Australia and for indigenous communities. He has also been a hospital superintendent, director of the Western Australia Alcohol and Drug Committee and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Western Australia.

Until recently, one of his three adult children - Matthew, who is a Bahamian - was a teacher at St Andrew’s School. He now works in Thailand.

• From the Crazy Hill to Sandilands: Reflections & Memories of a Psychiatrist in The Bahamas, by Dr John Spencer. Published by Media Enterprises, 2016. 100 pages.

• What do you think? Send comments to lsmith@tribunemedia.net or visit www.bahamapundit.com