Doctor George Odongo recently reached retirement age at the Queen Beatrix Medical Center in St. Eustatius. Born in Uganda, this physician has a message about passion and perseverance from which we could all learn.
From African drum beats to Caribbean heart beats, his determination has not waned. It began during the fearful rule of Idi Amin, the butcher of Africa, and continued in St. Eustatius where Odongo brought more than 500 Statia babies into the world.
“We should not always judge other people by our own standards,” says Odongo with a smile. “In East Africa, polygamy has always been legal and my father had six wives who bore him over 61 children. I was lucky number 13.”
“An abundance of offspring does not always make for a springboard for opportunity,” notes the good doctor. “Nevertheless, as a teenager in my village school in the Ugandan region of Lira, I quickly made my mark from many marks in science exams. I passed with flying colours.”
Odongo's early fascination with natural sciences persists to this day. His reflector telescope has been following last December's rare conjunction of Saturn with Jupiter. However, it was not the stars that signalled his future, but his mother and a pushy English teacher and career coach. Thanks to a government grant, he was able to study medicine at the Makerere University Medical School, Kampala, for three years. But no thanks to a crackdown by genocidal Idi Amin since, George was forced to flee to Nigeria via Kenya.
Idi Amin had started to murder an estimated half a million souls and whereas George was perfectly qualified to pursue his love of medicine, his tribal identity had become a target of hate. In Nigeria, the now UN refugee Mister Odongo became Doctor Odongo at the University of Lagos. It was the late seventies and the world – in particular Trinidad and Tobago – wanted to explore his newly acquired medical skills.
“Unlike today, the General Practitioner had very few drugs and devices to treat diseases,” Odongo remarks. “Doctors had to deliver treatments on spoons, whereas now we have spades. We can spot diseases with an MRI scan, use robots to treat or surgically remove them and develop vaccines at breakneck speed. The future is even more exciting. Today, we are less physicians in the physical sense but molecular manipulators – exploring cells and altering their chemistry.”
In 1998, Odongo was invited to fill a vacancy in St. Eustatius by the late Doctor Sjouke Bakker.
“I had corresponded with Doctor Bakker during my Nigerian times. Doctor Stekelenberg, who was chief of Queen Beatrix Medical Center, was retiring and I was invited to undergo a trial period. After three months on the job, I was kidnapped permanently by the Center. Although I like to think that it was the Historical Gem and its people that appealed to my senses.”
For almost 23 years, those senses have been used continuously. Sometimes, Odongo was the only doctor on the island and, by his own admission, worked 365 days a year without sick leave. He also donated medicine to poorest patients and is today respected and loved by many Statians who have benefited from his healing hands if not generous heart.
“On Statia we are gifted by a health and welfare movement that grows ever stronger. Resources for the dealing of healing are much improved since I first came to the island. And the current Covid pandemic has illustrated how offices here and in The Netherlands have come together for the hard work of safeguarding the community and vaccination of our people.
“Welfare cultures are changing on Statia. From food to fitness, we are making better choices on our beautiful tropical island. But we still have a long way to go. Obesity, diabetes and mosquito borne diseases are largely preventative. Even in the field of mental health, we are making progress in diagnosis and treatment. Not a moment of medicine is lost on the Historical Gem.”
Having reached his official retirement, Doctor George Odongo is now reviewing his career options. “Retirement is a mindset and I am not there,” he insists. “I still have the energy to volunteer, teach, consult or even go back to work part-time. This Doctor in the House is not quite ready for doctor in the home.”
