Outpouring of Love for Retired Senior Medical Officer at CRH

Family, friends and colleagues came from far and wide to participate in and pay tribute at the retirement ceremony for prominent Senior Medical Officer at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH), Dr. Derek Harvey.

At the ‘retirement party’, held recently at the Day O Plantation Restaurant in St. James, one thread was common among all the tributes paid to Dr. Harvey – he was highly respected and loved what he did.

Dr. Harvey, a doctor for close to 40 years, spent the majority of those years at the CRH.

He was a consultant anaesthetist prior to holding the post of Senior Medical Officer at the facility from 2016 until he retired on July 26 this year.

In an interview with JIS News, Dr. Harvey expressed gratitude for the outpouring of love at the function.

“I am feeling the love. This is my third retirement function since I left, but this one was put on by the staff of CRH and CRH is a family and I am definitely feeling the love and the appreciation,” said the doctor.

Dr. Harvey, who joined the team at CRH in 1986 after starting his medical career a year prior, said that although the facility has gone through several phases since his arrival, the respect he has received during his tenure was mutual.

He underscored his love, for the CRH and commended the staff for their hard work, despite the challenges the facility has faced.

“The hardships that we (CRH) have had in the past have brought us together. So, if you ask me what I see in that room, it’s just love, because people never had to come [and] everybody in here probably has something positive to say about each other,” he said.

He cited a recent renal mission to the Falmouth Public General Hospital with staff from CRH, where he saw the nurses going above and beyond in their duties.

To upcoming medical professionals, Dr. Harvey hopes that his generation has laid a solid foundation on which they can build.

“Those who follow us, may they find that we have done the work for them to follow. We live in a different environment today; there is a lot of crime and violence but if we stay focused on the positives, if we can make that mark, remain humble and true to the cause, I don’t think there is any other country better than Jamaica. There are issues, but we have potential,” Dr. Harvey said.

He encouraged persons to “be kind to each other and see the good in the persons you work with”.

“Jamaica is a blessed country. I have had the opportunity to work and live abroad, but when I am coming down on the plane, coming into this country, there is no other feeling,” Dr. Harvey said.

For his part, Regional Director at the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), St. Andrade Sinclair, told JIS News that Dr. Harvey is “a gentleman and a scholar”.

“He is always there; he is dedicated; he is devoted. I made sure I got him to help me in the development of the Western Children and Adolescent Hospital and the Cornwall Regional Hospital rehabilitation programme,” Mr. Sinclair said.

Meanwhile, Clinical Coordinator at the CRH, Dr. Delroy Fray, reminisced about meeting the medical officer (Dr. Harvey) when he just started at CRH.

His tribute was filled with hilarious stories from Dr. Harvey’s tenure and spoke to his kindness, hard work and tenacity.

“One of the functions that he held was to orientate the interns and I remember there was a young intern he started in obstetrics and gynaecology. The first day, the gynaecology guys put him on the postnatal ward; they had 40 patients to review. Guess what? The young man started crying,” Dr. Fray recalled.

“The young man called his mother and said, ‘Medicine is not for me. I’m leaving this job’, and his mother came and took him home. When Dr. Harvey heard about it, he went to the young man’s home, spoke to the mother, counselled the intern, told him he needed a little time to settle down, and told him to come back in a week. The young man took a week, settled down, came back and finished his internship. He went abroad and did his postgraduate training in internal medicine. That’s the type of person you are looking at here,” Dr. Fray said.