Norman Gay Haymon Obuary (1921 - 2020) | Deridr, Louisiana

As the longt servg Mister of Health The Bahamas, Dr. Norman Rupert Gay sports que a list of acplishments om his time ernment, cludg a grant-based rearch iative to plete a 40-volume plan for health the untry the creatn of a nursg school which would bee the nursg program at the College of The Bahamas and the creatn of an AIDS Secretariat The Bahamas. Yet Dr. Gay is most proud of his volvement both the Pan-Amerin Health Organizatn PAHO as chairman and his work wh the World Health Organizatn WHO as a prenter at several nferenc. Prentg on the state of the health of the wtern world wh the ternatnal anizatns, he says, helped him foc more broadly on health-related issu facg Bahamians. It helped me as the mister of health to look at the health of the entire Bahamas rather than as a physician lookg at the health of dividuals who e , he says. For at heart Dr. Gay is a physician, and like all doctors he took an oath to help people who need .&nbsp And what people need now more than ever, he says, is heath tn and accs to heath rmatn - pecially a world where non-munible diseas, such as diabet, oby, high blood prsure and ncer are acuntg for most of the aths worldwi. Chronic disease is not somethg that happens overnight.&nbsp It's somethg that tak 20 to 30 years before happens, he says.&nbsp All of them are preventable and reversible - which is another world for curable - and I don't hate to e the world 'cure' as is one that is hardly ed. It's an exprsn that is beg echoed by many world lears the days.&nbsp Jt recently, the Uned Natns hosted a general assembly special summ on the illns and their social and enomic impacts.&nbsp Dr. Gay also pots out that our Caribbean neighbor, Tridad and Tobago, is takg steps toward batg s rate of chronic disease, pledgg to rce by 25 percent by the year 2025. But how do one bat such diseas - or reverse and cure them&nbsp The answer, Dr. Gay says, do not lie a miracle dg offered by pharmactil pani.&nbsp Unlike most doctors who are traed to and ntue the practice of treatg symptoms, Dr. Gay treats the e of symptoms wh surprisgly simple liftyl chang, like swchg to a plant-based diet, at his medil clic, The Bahamas Anti-Agg Medil Instute. That stute, he says, which was tablished the 1970s, me about through treatg repeat patients he saw as senr medil officer for ambulatory re at Prcs Margaret Hospal the late 1960s.&nbsp The number of patients g was too much for the small pool of doctors to handle. So I had to look at who the people were who were g here, he remembers.&nbsp And as I reviewed rerds, I saw they were the same persons g over and over and over aga wh chronic illns - diabet, high blood prsure, arthris - and persons, spe treatment, were all too equently g to the emergency room wh stroke. So I started an eveng clic wh selected patients to get them to unrstand and take charge of their own health, and wh a three-month perd of time, was amazg what took place the liv of those patients, he says. The bt piece of advice he n offer dividuals and persons the medil field is to te themselv about the evolvg field of medice, new disveri, and wellns, all while keepg an open md. It's fely hard to change the way one has been programmed to functn and what one has been programmed to believe when to wellns and nutrn.&nbsp But as Dr. Gay pots out the objective may not be to live a longer life, but to live a more fulfillg life wh one's body fully functnal. As I've been back my practice seeg patients, certa thgs beme obv - that if we ntue to do the thgs we are dog, we will not succeed, he says.&nbsp And if you don't get the rults you want, you better change what you do.&nbsp And we're not too good at changg what we do. We have a set of learned thgs and then on the other hand we have powerful vted tert groups who have a lot to lose if is changed, and this gets the way of meangful change.&nbsp But today, I'm pleased to say that change is happeng. Ined, he is hopeful that a paradigm shift is happeng both on a world sle and The Bahamas through the regnn of functnal medice and the sensizg of his lleagu the field of medice to such methods.&nbsp Yet, there is a long way to go and tn is the key. I want to have a natnal health tn program endorsed and put to practice The Bahamas, he says.&nbsp Knowg the way the body functns will serve you to be able to prevent many thgs.