Local man receives prestigious community building award
Jun 02, 2008 - 02:49 PM
By Jillian Follert
DURHAM -- It’s easy to pick out the Clarington farm where Dr. Roy Rowsell and his wife Blaikie live -- it’s the one with the big Guyanese flag waving proudly out front.
The South American country isn’t the couple’s native land but it has been like a second home to
“It’s a beautiful country with wonderful people,” said Dr. Rowsell, 86, who was recently recognized
The honour recognizes Dr. Rowsell’s years of humanitarian medical work.
After serving in the Canadian Navy during the Second World War, the Toronto native fulfilled his dream of going to medical school and began his career as an internist at what was then Oshawa General Hospital.
He spent years helping to grow the fledging hospital before taking his expertise global.
In 1970, Dr. Rowsell and his wife made their first trip to Guyana, travelling with a local church group that brought medical supplies to rural areas.
He loved the experience but wasn’t a fan of the religious tone of the trip so he and Blaikie -- a nurse -- started going back on their own terms, paying for plane tickets and medicine out of pocket.
“We would go once or twice a year and try to convince as many people as we could to come with us,” Dr. Rowsell said. “We would just go to communities that needed help and do whatever we could.”
Soon he had partnered with Lions Club International in Guyana and in 1997 they joined forces
Working as a team, they introduced mobile clinics where thousands of Guyanese patients were examined and treated, set up immunization, multivitamin and mosquito net programs and helped establish medical infrastructure.
Dr. Mike Silverman works at Lakeridge Health Oshawa and often accompanied Dr. Rowsell on these trips.
He recalled setting up clinics in schools that were little more than benches with sheets strung up for privacy, but said Dr. Rowsell warmed the atmosphere with his compassion.
“He would be there with his black bag and he would spend an hour and a half with a patient, getting to know them, going over their whole medical history,” he said. “You don’t see much of that style anymore. He’s the kind of doctor who wanted to heal the whole person, not just the illness.”
That reputation earned Dr. Rowsell the nickname “Dr. Roy” and made him a hero in Guyana.
Until last year, he was still making the trip on an annual basis, sleeping in tents, swimming in rivers and listening to Oshawa Generals games on shortwave radio in the rainforest.
As he approaches his 87th birthday, Dr. Rowsell’s children have finally convinced him to stick closer to home, making his recent Guyana Award win a fitting end to an era.
Ever modest, Dr. Rowsell said he was trilled to accept the honour but still not convinced he deserved it.
“It’s very, very kind, but I don’t think I did that much,” he said. “I just helped where I could.”
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