‘Go big or go home’

THE WELL-KNOWN phrase, “Go big or go home”, could have well been crafted as a challenge for midwife Florence Pink of Bonham Crest in Exchange, near Ocho Rios. And how well she would have risen to that challenge!

At 84-years-old, Nurse Pink, as she is popularly known, has been blessed with long life, a blessing that has spanned all spheres of her life, it seems.

From a personal standpoint, she has been a Christian for all of 70 years, having being baptised at age 14 in the New Testament Church of God (NTCOG). She has been married to her husband Altimond for 54 years, the couple, being the same age, just celebrated their anniversary on April 22.

From a professional standpoint, Nurse Pink has served in Jamaica’s health sector for 51 years and, as a midwife, has delivered an estimated 2,700 babies during that period, including 34 in one eventful New Year’s Eve night at Victoria Jubilee Hospital (VJH), while she was still a student nurse.

Most of her deliveries, though, would have been in St Ann parish, she being a product of Mount Olivet in the ‘Garden Parish’.

In 2012, Nurse Pink was given an award on National Heroes Day for long and meritorious service.

She started in the field in April 1965 and retired in November 1999 and was rehired a few weeks later in January 2000, and worked up until her permanent retirement in 2017.

She would have delivered mother, daughter, and granddaughter across several families.

There is a saying in some sections of St Ann that if you were born within a certain geographical area – Exchange and surrounding districts such as Mile End, Union, Thatch Hill, and Eltham, among others over a certain period of time, then you had to be a “Pink baby”. That is, you were delivered by Nurse Pink!

EARLY TRAINING

Pink enrolled for training at VJH in 1963 and graduated in April 1965, then did her orientation in Brown’s Town following which she was sent to work at Borobridge, near the Clarendon border.

She describes the 51 years in the sector as, “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!”

Sharp-witted, Nurse Pink revealed herself as a good storyteller as she recounted some of her life’s experiences, beginning with that fateful night at Jubilee.

“It was New Year’s Eve night, two of us should work as students with a staff nurse on ward two, labour ward. The other student nurse, now her husband, was a soldier and they had their soldier party so she came to work late and as she came in, she went off to sleep. The staff nurse went into a little room, covered up herself and went to sleep too. So, I was alone. And I am telling you, in that labour ward I did 34! I’m telling you the truth, 34 deliveries that night!” she exclaimed.

Then her first time in Borobridge turned out to be an unforgettable life or death experience, she puts it. It was June 1965.

‘JOCKEY RIDE’ TO DELIVERY

Nurse Pink shared: “It was rain, rain, rain and they called me to do a delivery. Mr John Junor used to take me but he couldn’t come out in the rain that night. I had to walk from Borobridge junction to Aenon Town. Night dark, but there was a man with a little bottle lamp. When we came to the river, (which was rising) he took my delivery pack and said ‘Nurse, stay here suh, ‘til mi come’, and he went over (crossed) the river. When he came back, he stooped down and – I was very slim, 120 pounds – and he said to me, ‘Nurse, come on mi back’.

“And I went on his back and he took me over the river, after walking about four miles from Junction. Every day I remember that, it was a life or death thing. every time I see that area under water and the river comes down, I cry because I remember I could have drowned.”

At the end of August 1965, she was transferred to Exchange, an improvement from the rural setting of the Borobridge area, she pointed out.

“When I went to Exchange – civilisation!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “There were still some places without electricity but it was still more environmentally friendly for me. I remember I came up on North Liner bus.”

Now, Altimond Pink was called the ‘Benz Man’ because as a mechanic he specialised in repairing Mercedes-Benz cars. He wasn’t a Christian but he prayed to the Lord to send him a Christian girl for him to marry.

Nurse Pink described her years of marriage as such.

“My 54 years of marriage have been happy, happy years because I came as a Christian and I had all the plans. I was under bond for two years but after that I decided to go and do my general, then I wanted to do public health.”

She was accepted at two hospitals, Kingston Public and Staffordshire General in the United Kingdom. Ultimately, she decided to go overseas.

But then, someone’s prayer was answered.

“Then mi meet Mr Pink and get meself mix-up and get pregnant. He was the first person I’d been with because I got saved from 14. And at 28 mi guh get meself mix-up, so mi couldn’t go KPH, mi couldn’t go England. He said he wanted a Christian girl and ‘God just provide one’!”

At her church, the NTCOG, “They cursed me, I had to hide because they weren’t expecting that from me. But ah nuh dem mi fail, a God mi fail and God neva fail me. But I came back and I got baptised (again). I got married on a Wednesday and the Sunday mi go baptise again and he baptised about two years after.”

She had the baby and the couple got married on Wednesday, April 22, 1970. The couple would eventually have six children, with one now deceased.

All are university trained and work in fields such as medicine, architecture, education, and telecommunications.

The couple has done a lot of social work and work in the church. Nurse Pink started a Sunday school at her home which became so huge the church was eventually asked to take it over. Altimond, in the meantime, became a deacon.

“We married off of nothing but eventually built everything with love. We go through our little valleys and our little hills, our little deep waters, and our little shallow waters, but nothing much to speak about because eventually he came into the church. He has always been a faithful husband, I’ve never had any problem with him. We’ve never quarrelled, never had a fight.”

editorial@gleanerjm.com