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Not long ago, a couple of letters to the editor appeared where the writers complained about extremely long waits at public health institutions. I had immediately thought that this is why I walk with a book whenever I have to go to any institution, public or private.
But then I thought about it some more. It doesn’t really matter whether you carry something to help you pass the time. The act of waiting, especially when there is no certainty about how long you will be so suspended, is a mental drain.
Waiting to see a doctor is the worst, because you are already unwell. In a public health facility, it is especially bad because it can be several hours.
On top of the interminable time you spend amidst a crowd of equally uncomfortable people with their various ailments, you are always anxious that your name might not be called, or that it was called and you didn’t hear it.
I remember going to a private doctor who was running late, and so had a back-up of patients. His receptionist told me it would be at least an hour and a half before I could see him. She was very apologetic, and to be fair this was not the norm.
I went out to run some errands, and got back after about an hour, only to see her taking a patient who was after me into his office. I’d missed it by a couple of minutes. That was not quite the ordeal I have experienced at other places, some of which have left me unwilling to endure what I discovered to be commonplace.
Often, you know staff are doing the best they could, but sometimes they are brusque and impatient, and that is the part that adds to the suffering.
At times like those, you can hardly find anything to distract you from the anxiety and the discomfort.
Even if you are in robust health, let’s say you walk into somewhere like the Licensing Office early in the morning, by the time you get out of there, you are a hot mess.
There is something about hanging about with no clear end in sight that really blisters the brain. Not even a book can help.
I was thinking about it the other day, during the first Test match between West Indies and South Africa at the Queen’s Park Oval, when rain consistently interrupted play for days. Players went off the field, hunkered down and then came back on. Hours passed.
Play only started on one day in the middle of the afternoon. It didn’t matter that they had left the ground until the umpires gave them a time to resume, they were basically stuck in the same limbo as a doctor’s waiting room. No way of knowing when their number would be called.
I’d felt sympathy for them all. How would they manage to compose themselves, to find the spirit again?
Photo: CWI Media
I know that rain interruptions are a factor in cricket, and that players are supposed to be able to handle the on-and-off aspect. It doesn’t make it any easier.
The mind is what it is, and sometimes the pressure is too much without the kind of training that develops mental fortitude and agility.
I am not convinced that this is one of the attributes of our cricketers. And look how I’ve gone and turned this into a column about cricket!
Photo: Getty
I hadn’t meant to, but the truth is that it’s been roosting very possessively in my brain, as I have been working on a presentation I am to give today at The UWI.
The Academy of Sport is hosting a commemoration of the centenary of Sir Frank Worrell’s birth, and they’ve asked me to talk about his contributions. It’s at 10am at the campus, and is free and open to the public (that’s a plug!), and it is one of the reasons I have been thinking about the business of mental preparation.
(I’ve also been enjoying watching Hayley Matthews bat in this WCPL; she is so full of grace and style; she makes me think of the way Worrell was described.)
Photo: CWI Media
Worrell was devoted to mentoring in a way that was exceptional and we have had few captains who carry that trait—except perhaps Daren Sammy, who is now coach of the white ball team.
Yesterday they would have played their first T20 against South Africa in Tarouba at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy. I have no idea how that match turned out, but I hope that the rest of the games will not be troubled by rain.
While I am on the subject of cricket, it is bizarre that the mess at Cricket West Indies (CWI) regarding the validity of vice-president Azim Bassarath’s position has come to the juncture it has.
With the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) issuing a legal challenge, and CWI first opting to appeal the ruling, then deciding they would hold an election in September, it turns out that Bassarath is the only nominee for the post.
Didn’t the GCB think to offer a candidate? The whole thing is such an absurdity; it suggests that the pronouncements about keeping with “the highest standards of democratic principles and transparency” are nothing more than fluff.
And so, we continue to play the waiting game, hoping that somehow, soon, this rampant disrespect will finally end.
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Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
