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The Voice of a Pioneer
Interview with Dr Elizabeth Quamina, dating back to 1996.
In 1996, the staff of FPATT sat down to interview the remaining pioneers of the Association. Today, these documented interviews are some of the few links the Association has with its founding members. It became a daunting task weeding through the raw data to find the valuable information that lay within the pages of dusty, yellowed files. The text below is the final interview done with Dr Elizabeth Quamina, one of the founding members of FPATT, on her experiences in Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr Quamina began her work in Trinidad and Tobago at the San Fernando General Hospital, while her husband was working in the maternity ward.
“I used to see mothers coming in pregnant and when we spoke to them we realised this was their fifth or sixth pregnancy and these women were all around the age of 22. I saw the women die from anaemia, I saw them die from ruptured uterus and I realised that even though family planning services existed, no one knew,” Dr Quamina said during her interview.
After this experience, she went back to England and gained a diploma in family planning. She returned to Trinidad with a mission to get involved in family planning here. She was hit with the political reality that surrounded the mere idea of family planning. The politicians of the time were skeptical about encouraging family planning and the Government was afraid to go against the teachings of the Catholic Church.
“I felt that as a doctor, I had the right to give my patients the best care and the best advice, so I told them about family planning services.”
Taking her work out into the communities became a huge part of her efforts and it was on one of these trips that Dr Quamina made the acquaintance of Dr. Beric Wright. Delighted at the prospect of becoming part of the small but effective FPA team, Dr Quamina began referring her clients to the clinics in Point Fortin and Port of Spain. As fate would have it, she later met Mrs Nicky McBride, who asked her to come and work out of the clinic in Sackville Street. Determined to help out as much as she could, she would drive everyday from San Fernando to Port of Spain to work at the clinic.
“We were mostly prescribing diaphragms and condoms. And of course the great thing was that I could talk to the husbands. A lot of the husbands in the rural communities were afraid that their wives would be unfaithful to them, so I used to show them the diaphragm and say ‘if you don’t trust your wife, then you keep the diaphragm.’”
Together with Mrs McBride, Dr Quamina played a significant role in counselling couples on everything from infertility to marriage. She later became one of the first members of the Population Council.
Dr Quamina along with the other founding members played a huge role in shaping the way family planning is viewed in Trinidad and Tobago. Their contributions and ideas still run deep in the heart of the core strategies of the Association. Through Dr Quamina’s work with rural communities and men in particular, she paved the path for the now successful Outreach Programme and For Men Only Clinic.
