Female Custos of Hanover By Dale McNish,
Freelance Writer
WESTERN BUREAU: MRS. MAVIS Whitter-King, OD, recently created history, becoming the first female to hold the office of Custos Rotulorum for Hanover. Mrs. King, 69, took up her appointment on May 15 and will be officially installed at a ceremony to be held on June 27 at the Tryall Beach Resort. "It's a very good selection... she is well qualified, very affable and also a hard worker," said Calvin G. Brown, president of the parish's Lay Magistrate's Association, who also acted as Custos. A retired nurse, Mrs. King who served in the health service for 32-years, is the wife of Dr. Aston King, former Member of Parliament for Eastern Hanover. Mrs. King told The Gleaner one of her main objectives during her tenure is to create a stronger link between Justices of the Peace and community members in order to achieve common goals and objectives. "I would love to see a relationship of co-operation and co-ordination established between the Lay Magistrates and the communities they serve to achieve specific objectives for the betterment of all concerned," said Mrs. King, who is also a senior JP. The position of Custos was made vacant on December 24, last year, following the death of Phillip B. Wilson, after serving just under two years in that post. Mr. Wilson, who was 70, succumbed to a brain illness while a patient at the Tony Thwaites Wing of the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston. Mrs. King was trained as a registered nurse, midwife and public health nurse in England where she lived for seven years during the 1950s. Upon her return to Jamaica she took up duties in Claremont, St. Ann, as a public health nurse and worked there for nine years. She was transferred to Hanover in 1967 as the parish's senior public health nurse, after a short stint she was sent to Trelawny and was again re-routed to Hanover. Mrs. King was also a senior tutor at the Cornwall School of Nursing and Midwifery, tutor for National Nursing Administration Course and an examiner for Public Health Nursing and Midwifery students. She acted on several occasions as the Cornwall County nursing supervisor and also served as the County's clinical training supervisor. Since 1996, she has been reassigned to the Ministry of Health serving as the regional research nurse working with the Jamaica Population and Health Project II. She has the distinction of establishing the first National Cancer Registry for the Ministry of Health. Mrs. King who has done a number of professional courses at the University of the West Indies and the University of North Carolina, sits on a number of committees including the Western Regional Health Authority Management Board, chairman Hanover Parish Health Committee, Hopewell Citizens Association and the Hanover Drug Abuse Committee. A member of the Hopewell Seventh Day Adventist, Mrs. King is the mother of one son.
|
