Africa-Press – Seychelles. A towering health leader, one of the oldest Seychellois doctors alive until recently, a man who contributed immensely to shape local medical ethics and excellence in patient-centered care for four decades, passed away in the United Kingdom on December 11, 2022 and was cremated on January 5, 2023.
Although there was no pomp and circumstance following his passing, former colleagues and friends of Dr Mahendra K. Patel at the Ministry of Health and beyond, remember him fondly.
The annals show that he served alongside many other reputable Seychellois health professionals such as Dr De, Dr Macgregor, Dr D’Offay, Dr Ferrari, Matron Nella Mathiot, Pharmacist Philip Fock-Heng and Nurse Helene Fontaine, among many others.
One of his octogenarian colleagues, Dr Guy Ah-Moye, says, on Facebook, that he worked with Dr Patel from the end of 1970 to 1979.
“He never moaned or groaned when duty called and he could always be relied on to help,” Dr Ah Moye remembers.
Helene Allisop, retired nurse of the same generation as Dr Ah Moye, and who for a long time worked with Dr Patel in the tuberculosis programme of the Ministry of Health, was equally all praise for the doctor.
“After he had gone for a short training in Nairobi, he came back to revolutionize TB treatment. Patients really got better with the new approach to treatment that he brought back! It was remarkable,” she recalled.
All who knew Dr Patel agree that the patient’s medical history and clinical record were the sharpest tools in his medical armamentarium.
“As a medical doctor he was extremely thorough at history taking. Nothing in the past history of a patient would ever escape him,” says Marie Ange Denis, an ascending nurse and midwife during much of Dr Patel’s tenure.
Former Chief Allied Health Officer and one of the very first Seychellois physiotherapists, Patricia Rene, concurs.
“As a leader, he was a disciplinarian,” she says with deference. “Discipline strikingly drove his work and the respect others showed towards him!”
Others still, such as Helene Nicette, a retired nurse-leader, commented on the personalized care Dr Patel unfailingly proffered to patients.
“He would jot-down their appointment dates in his personal note-book and then ask nurses to contact patients directly for their appointments,” she said. “We all drew inspiration from his work ethics!”
Another retired nurse leader, Bella Henderson, concurs.
“He always made sure that patients’ notes were always neatly ordered and that the result of every single laboratory examination requested by any doctor was neatly sequenced in the patients’ file,” she says. “Unfortunately, we have lost much of that sense of orderliness today!”
For a long time, Dr Patel was the ministry’s “in-house doctor”assigned to attend to the medical needs of health workers.
“He was certainly one doctor who would never give you a sick leave certificate unless you really deserved it,” recalls today’s Chief Nurse Officer, Dr Gylian Mein, who was only a budding young nurse during the service of Dr Patel.
Beyond the health sector, veteran educator Mohamed Lamine Kante was one of those who knew him well. He heaped several accolades on Dr Patel’s character and the family that he built.
Dr Patel’s long life was spent partly in Kenya, partly in India and partly in Seychelles. After primary and secondary schools in Gujrat, (India), Mahendra K. Patel attended Pune Medical School and Grant Medical College in Bombay, two of the very few medical schools in India at the time.
“After Kenya’s independence most of the Indian community moved to England but my father, to be more useful, wanted to go to a less developed country. At the same time, he saw an advert in the newspapers looking for a doctor in Seychelles which became the perfect choice for him,” says Suketu Patel, son of Dr Patel.
That was in 1964. Previously, in 1963, the family had stopped over in Seychelles on their way to India.
Dr Patel left the services of the Ministry of Health in the early nineties, after serving devotedly during the sixties, seventies, eighties and early nineties, at a time when Seychellois doctors were few and far between. Thereafter, he spent a quiet life at home, attending to his personal passions.
“After his retirement he enjoyed gardening, tennis, hiking, reading and spending time with his grandchildren,” says son Suketu.
“He was a quiet man but he had a remarkable sense of right and wrong,” adds Suketu Patel, confirming what several colleagues had said about his father.
“The Ministry of Health regrets the passing of Dr Patel who has left an indelible positive mark on the health service. The ministry continues to miss him, now more than ever before,” says the Minister of Health, Peggy Vidot.
Dr Patel leaves behind his three children – Suketu and Loma Patel and Sukeshi Thomson – as well as his four grandchildren and six great grandchildren. His wife Savita died in 2013.
Dr Patel would have been 94 years old on January 26 this year.
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