Board of Directors 2016-18 - Healthy Caribbean Coalition

Sir Trevor Hassell – President

Sir Trevor Hassell is a medical doctor, former Adjunct Professor of Medicine, the University of the West Indies, and Consultant Physician and Cardiologist, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Barbados. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, England.

Board Members

Dr. Victor Coombs (Board member since 2012)

Dr. Coombs is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts in Boston with a Liberal Arts Degree majoring in Chemistry. He obtained his Medical Degree from the University of the West-Indies, Mona, Jamaica in 1978.

He obtained a MSc. Degree from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine of the University of London and graduated with a mark of Distinction. He obtained the Diploma in Public Health from the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene.

At the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine he returned to train in Occupational Medicine after one year full time practice in Industry and was awarded the Diploma in Industrial Health at the Royal College of Physicians of London. This was followed by the (AFOM) Associate of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine. His training extended to Aviation Medicine in Farnborough Institute of Aviation Medicine, and Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine through Duke University and Divers Alert Network. He also completed a Mini Residency in Occupational Medicine at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.

Management experience was complemented by an (EMBA) Executive Masters in Business Administration from IOB/UWI. Practical experience at the Augustus Long Hospital was complemented by a Master of Science Degree in Emergency Medicine from U.W.I/FOMS St. Augustine.

He has worked full time in Industry for (30) thirty years, for twenty one (21) of these years he was the Chief Medical Officer of Trintoc/Petrotrin. He is a Consultant in Occupational and Environmental Health with interests in Toxicology, Accident Prevention, Emergency Medical Response, HIV/Stress in the Workplace, Health Services Management, Disaster Preparedness and Disability Assessment, Alcohol and Drug Abuse in the Workplace, and Wellness in the Workplace.

He has held positions such as President National Safety Council, Director Employers Consultative Association, Director North West Regional Health Authority, Director Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Director Pesticide and Toxic Chemicals Control Board, Council of the Medical Board of Trinidad and Tobago, Medical Referee, Aviation Medical Examiner, Diving Medical Examiner and Part-time Lecturer UWI Medical School. He has done Advisory and Consultancy Services in Occupational Health and Safety for Local, Regional and International Organizations. He is a former Chairman of the Partners Forum for Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases. (A PAHO/MOH/NGO’S/Civil Society Organizations Grouping). He is a Director of Healthy Caribbean Coalition. (HCC), and Chairman of Occupational Safety and Health Authority of the (OSHA) Ministry of Labour, and Small Enterprise Development and part time Lecturer in the MPH programme at UWI/FOMS St Augustine.

Maisha Hutton – Executive Director – Secretary

Maisha Hutton is the Executive Director of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC), the only regional alliance of over 100 NCD focused civil society organisations. Maisha holds a BSc in Microbiology, a MSc. in Molecular Biology and a PGDip in International Health. Prior to joining the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, she worked in HIV/AIDS and STI prevention and control for 10 years.

Dr. Homer Bloomfield (Board member since 2016)

Dr. Bloomfield is a graduate of the University of the West Indies, Class of 1981, Mona Campus, Jamaica, BSc., MB. BS.

Dr. Bloomfield is a retired Senior Medical Officer, Dept. of OBS. & GYN, Princess Margaret Hospital, Nassau, Bahamas, he is Medical Director/Lyndhurst Medical Center and Associate Lecturer: UWI Medical School, Bahamas Campus, Nassau, Bahamas.

Dr. Karen Sealey (Board member since 2016)

Former Special Adviser, UN and Partnerships, Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization

Karen Sealey is a physician-planner, public specialist with a wide breadth of experience in public health administration and planning at the national and international levels. Before joining PAHO/WHO, she was the Director of Health Planning in the Ministry of Health, Trinidad and Tobago.

Hon. Laura Tucker-Longsworth O.B.E. (Board member since 2014)

Laura Tucker Longsworth made history on Friday, January 13, 2017 when she was sworn in as only the third appointed female House Speaker in the House of Representatives, Belize.

Laura Tucker-Longsworth is a registered nurse who received her basic nursing and midwifery education from the Bliss School of Nursing in Belize City, which is now known as the Faculty of Nursing and Allied Health, University of Belize.

She holds a Certificate in Nursing Education from the University of the West Indies School of Nursing. She earned a Master’s of Science degree in nursing from the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, Loyola University Chicago, where she majored in Health Systems Management with a focus on outcomes performance. Mrs. Longsworth was a Sister Tutor and Acting Principal at the Bliss School of Nursing. She played a key role in upgrading the Registered Nurse curriculum from a diploma program to a baccalaureate degree and participated in the transitioning of the School of Nursing into the University of Belize.

Nurse Longsworth is an entrepreneur and is the managing director of Nursing & Healthcare Services (NHS) Consultants Ltd. The company offers consulting services that are tailored towards assisting healthcare providers and other agencies to deliver quality healthcare services to the Belizean community. Consulting services focus on improving the quality of life for individuals through the promotion of wellness initiatives, early interventions, rehabilitative services and lifestyle changes that can be adopted to achieve optimal levels of health. This is facilitated by the promotion and implementation of continuous quality improvement initiatives in health systems.

Laura Tucker-Longsworth has been a lifelong member of the Nurses Association of Belize and continues to counsel, mentor and support her nursing colleagues and nursing students. She is the Chairperson of the Disciplinary Committee for the Nurses and Midwives Council of Belize. The Council has the responsibility to ensure that nurses code of ethics is upheld, determine if standards of practice have been compromised and also protect the rights of nurses and patients. She collaborated with colleagues to develop an evidenced-based paper entitled Harmonizing Nursing Education: Theory and Practice which was published in the Caribbean Quarterly (2013).

In August 2014, Prime Minister Dean Barrow appointed her to the position of Chairperson of the National Aids Commission. Since her appoinment, the organization successfully submitted a proposal for three million US. dollars to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS/TB prevention and control. Additionally, committees have been reconstituted to ensure that the needs of key affected population (persons living with HIV/AIDS/TB, transgender persons, and LGBT community) and the wider community are addressed. She represents Belize on the Board for PANCAP (Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS) which is a regional CARICOM organization. In June 2016, she represented the National AIDS Commission at the United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS.

In January 2015, she was honored with the OBE Award for contribution to Nursing and Community Service. In March 2013, she received an Outstanding Woman Award from the University of the West Indies Open Campus in Belize for her commitment to the development of women and community in the area of health care and cancer awareness. Similarly, in 2003 she was the recipient of an award for Professionalism and Service from Loyola University Chicago.

Laura is a founding member and President of the Belize Cancer Society (BCS) and was appointed by the Minister of Health as a commissioner on the Non-Communicable Disease Commission (NCD). In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the BCS was awarded US. $150,000 (in 2015), by the Social Security Board (SSB), to facilitate cancer treatment for pediatric patients in Mexico. Collaborative efforts also resulted in financing from SSB to procure HPV vaccines which is now being offered to ten year old girls, free of cost, as a longterm public health strategy to prevent cervical cancer.

She serves on the Board of Directors for the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC)-a regional organization that works to increase the level of attention to non-communicable diseases. She represented the HCC at the World Cancer Congress (Dec. 2014) in Melbourne Australia, and also at an NCD conference in Sharjah (UAE) in 2015. She was featured in a documentary on cancer initiatives in Belize which was launched at an World Health Organization conference in Geneva (Dec. 2015), which she attended. As president of the Belize Cancer Society she advocates tirelessly for an “all of society” approach to address the prevention and control of cancer and for the establishment of a rights-based- comprehensive cancer control program in Belize.

In December 2016, she was nominated for the position of Speaker of the House for the National Assembly of Belize. Confirmation and formal appointment will take place in 2017 and Mrs. Longsworth will join the ranks of only two other women who have held that position and the first Nurse to ascend to the prestigious status of Speaker of the House in Belize.

Laura has been married for 46 years and is the mother of three children, seven grandchildren and one great granddaughter.

Previous Boards:

- 2014-16
  - Prof. Sir Trevor Hassell
  - Dr. Victor Coombs
  - Dr. Mortimer Moxey
  - Ms. Laura Tucker-Longsworth
  - Prof. Rainford Wilks
  - Mrs. Maisha Hutton
- 2012-14
  - Prof. Sir Trevor Hassell
  - Dr. Victor Coombs
  - Mrs. Debbie Chen
  - Ms. Joanne DeFreitas
  - Dr. Virginia Asin Oostburg