The Tribune

By FELICITY DARVILLE

MANY years ago, a wonderful little food store with family charm and great prices was located on the corner of Market and Quakoo Streets. Utoy’s Food Mart was special. It was owned by Eustan and Mary Forbes.

A charming couple, the Forbes were hands-on with their business. They served you themselves and they always took an interest in their customers. When I was a youngster, they showed genuine interest in my success and encouraged me in my pursuits. When I began having children, they continued to encourage me as they watched me grow and mature. They extended these virtues to the entire community. They never acted like it was too many people to get to know, or show care and concern for. This made Utoy’s special – a place to not just buy a necessity, but also to get a little dose of love – something we all need in life.

Eustan is a native of Long Bay Cays, South Andros. He met and married the love of his life, Mary. A first-generation Bahamian, Mary’s parents were Chinese, and they owned a restaurant that was at Utoy’s location. Together, Eustan and Mary raised their children Nikkiah and Damian with love and with that same respect for others and community spirit.

Nikkiah says her parents are “the most decent people who believe in doing the right thing all the time – dedicated, committed, caring people” who have helped mould her into the person she is today.

Indeed, the Forbes have a lot to be proud of, as their daughter has found her own way to be of service to the community.

Since she was a little girl, she always wanted to help her family if one of them got injured or sick. This natural inclination for caring for others grew into a clear vision for her future. Nikkiah decided she wanted to be a doctor.

She schooled at Queens College from grade one straight to grade 12. She took her GCEs and did well in all the sciences, setting her on a path to make her dreams come true. After graduating, she spent two years in tertiary education at the College of the Bahamas before going off to Barry University in Florida to continue to pursue her dream. She graduated from Barry with a Bachelor’s degree in Pre-Med and Biology, with a minor in Chemistry. Then, it was on to medical school.

Nikkiah attended the University of the West Indies’ St Augustine’s campus in Trinidad before returning to the Bahamas to complete her internship at the Princess Margaret Hospital. This is where interning doctors get their feet wet in the field, working all of the wards in the hospital and getting a true and practical feel for the profession before their year is up. After this period, Nikkiah had to decide which area of medicine she would like to specialize in. She chose internal medicine, then began her six-month period in supervised training. Internal medicine deals with complex problems in all organs. In this specialty, physicians apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to diagnose and treat people with a very broad range of health concerns and diseases. When Nikkiah was assigned specifically to infectious diseases, it piqued her interest. She found an area of medicine where she wanted to make a difference.

“Princess Margaret Hospital was a good training ground,” she said.

“I got a lot of practical skills. It equipped me for my specialization in infectious diseases. Internship was intensive and I had good medical training.”

She then returned to school, attending the University of the West Indies, this time at the Mona, Jamaica campus. There, she underwent rigorous training in her sub-specialty – infectious diseases. By the time Nikkiah returned home and began her Residency training, she was well-equipped for the task. Because she had spent time dealing with infectious diseases as an intern, the management and staff already knew her. They saw her passion and her concern for her patients. So, they called on her every week that clinic was held.

“I got all the infectious disease patients,” she said.

“I got better with practice, medical reading and expert training, with mentors like Dr Perry Gomez.”

Her mentors have made a major impact in her life. She learned from some of the best – people who exhibit high levels of leadership, managing medical teams and pushing their doctors to do and be their best.

When Nikkiah left UWI Mona, lecturers told her she had scored the highest passing grade ever of any fellow before her. It set the tone for what would be a successful career filled with helping the sick and the injured, just like she dreamed of when she was a little girl. Through a network of hospitals Nikkia trained around the world, including the Caribbean, South Carolina, and her last rotation – the University of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.

Her efforts to help, heal and care for her patients did not go unnoticed. While in Toronto, she was asked to stay on and continue working there. But Nikkiah, with that sense of native community building that her parents have, landed back on Bahamian shores. At the time there was no Infectious Disease Specialist at the hospital, so her skills and talents were greatly needed. She is able to prescribe treatment, head to toe, for a wide variety of infectious diseases caused by microorganisms. She works with resistant infections from viruses like HIV and Hepatitis, and emerging infections such as Chickengunya, Zika, and now COVID-19.

I spoke with her about the drive to vaccinate a larger portion of the population and why it is so important. She explained that vaccinating the population helps to bring the virus under control.

“When COVID is out of control, the virus can change and become a variant that the vaccines don’t work as well on,” she explained.

“If we could get to the point to where most of the world is vaccinated, it would help to reduce the amount of COVID in the world, which reduces the chances of it mutating.”

Some ask why countries like Israel experienced a spike, even though at least 60 percent of the population had already been vaccinated. Nikkiah pointed out that vaccination doesn’t absolve people from following health protocols. It’s still necessary to wear a mask, physically distance at least six feet from others, avoid crowds and so on. The spike, she said, occurred when new variants affect the population. Israel, she explained, was not deterred by the spike, and continued its vaccination programme and administering boosters. Infection rates in that country are low once again.

With the internet right at our fingertips, much information – and also misinformation – is available. Nikkiah encouraged those who may be hesitant to seek out the facts in order to protect their health.

“Not everything you hear or read is true,” she said, “and that’s in all areas of knowledge.”

“Make sure the information you get is cited in a reputable place. There are many persons purporting to be professionals. Seek out information from the Medical Council, the Medical Association of The Bahamas, the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control, and so on.

“Vaccination prevents hospitalization and death.”

Let that sink in… considering that more than 700 Bahamians have died as a result of contracting COVID-19 – a virus with a vaccine that helps to prevent hospitalization and death. Of those who died, the overwhelming majority were unvaccinated. In 2019, about 70 people died from HIV. When crime was peaking in The Bahamas, murder rates were still under 300. So, there’s a heavy weight that the pandemic has set upon this country. People Like Nikkiah are doing their part to help protect as many of their fellow Bahamians as possible.

As of December 8, 8.3 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered. About 36.4 million doses are given daily around the world.

The majority of people who take the vaccine won’t have side effects, she said. Roughly ten percent of them will have side effects that will go away in a couple of days. The number of people who have adverse side effects are miniscule compared to the number of people who experience adverse side effects from Covid. About 12 cases in every million people may have an adverse effect to the vaccination. That should be compared with the statistics available concerning the effects of COVID-19: 10-40 percent of people experience blood clots; 7-28 percent have heart damage; up to 20 percent experience acute respiratory distress syndrome; it makes Diabetes much harder to manage; and has a worse effect on people with medical problems like high blood pressure. Forty percent of people who contract COVID-19 experience Longhauler Syndrome, experiencing persistent conditions long after they initially contracted COVID.

Nikkiah also explained that RNA vaccines are not as new as some people think. This new technology in science, designed to save lives, has been around and under research for many years. They have been used in the fight against SARS, the virus that causes COVID-19, Zika, Rabies and even in cancer research.

While Nikkiah continues to work to educate the public and help her patients, she takes great pride in making a difference in policy. She is currently the Director of the National HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Programme at the Ministry of Health, Consultant in Infectious Disease at the Princess Margaret Hospital and Doctor’s Hospital, and she is an Associate Lecturer at the University of the West Indies, School of Clinical Medicine and Research. She is also a member of the Pan Caribbean Partnership on HIV/AIDS.

Nikkiah has been able to work with “an amazing team” of health professionals who have made a major impact on HIV/AIDS in the Bahamas. They have made such great inroads that today, many people are living and thriving, even with HIV in this country. She has been able to help make a difference in optimizing treatment for HIV/AIDS patients, ensuring that care is accessible and free for all, that high quality medicines are available, and helping to remove the stigma and discrimination. She and her team also helped push for the HIV Prep Pill to come to the Bahamas, making it the first English-speaking country in the Caribbean to implement it. It is a one a day pill used for HIV prevention for those most at risk of contracting the virus.

Of all her accomplishments, Nikkiah is most proud of raising her daughter, Lauren. She is emulating her parents’ values in a way that would set a good example for her daughter, and even for the younger doctors who are coming up like she did – with great aspirations to make a difference at home and in the world.