Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
Professor Denise Eldemire-Shearer with Barby, her dog. - PHOTOS BY RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
FASHION HATS are not her style. She does not wear them. Period. Still, Dr. Denise Eldemire-Shearer is a woman of many voluntary hats.
So much, that the 53-year-old lover of charitable work has difficulty keeping tabs on them all.
Dr. Eldemire-Shearer, widow of former Prime Minister, the late Hugh Lawson Shearer, plus daughter of former Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Health Minister Dr. Herbert Eldemire (1962-1972), is busier than a bumblebee.
During this interview at her office at the University of the West Indies, where she is head of community and health and psychiatry, Dr. Eldemire-Shearer said that she is also the chairman of the National Council for Senior Citizens (member since 1982; chairman since early '90s), chairman of the Board of Supervision, and deputy chair of the Golden Age Home.
The list was not completed. A short while later Dr. Eldemire-Shearer, who specialises in public health and geriatrics, stops mid-sentence to add another.
"Oh, I am also adviser to WHO (World Health Organisation) on ageing issues; we have a collaborative centre here ..." she said with her patented smile.
Minutes later and after much prodding from this reporter she recalled another for which she is founder and executive director. "Oh, we also have an NGO (non-governmental organisation) here (UWI) called Action Ageing that does training ... you see I forget the hats," she said.
Dr. Eldemire-Shearer lived in Ireland, where she was born while her father completed his studies in medicine, for the first two years of her life.
When her father finished his studies, the family returned to Jamaica. Dr. Eldemire-Shearer, who was the first of four children, was raised in Reading, St. James.
It has been more than half a century later and Dr. Eldemire-Shearer (who, by the way, does not look her age) has many accomplishments, some of which have earned her awards. Among them is the national honour of Commander of the Order of Distinction (CD).
Dr. Eldemire-Shearer's alma maters are Mount Alvernia Prep, Servite Convent High (now Brown's Town Community College) in Jamaica and Bishop's University in Canada.
Despite all the hats and accompanying work, Dr. Eldemire-Shearer collects one pay cheque for her job at UWI, which is supplemented by her private practice.
Dr. Eldemire-Shearer is a pleasant human being with the warmth of a fireplace. After several aborted attempts, Dr. Eldemire-Shearer finally admitted that she could not identify the rhyme or reason that motivates her to do charitable work.
"I know what motivated me to get involved with the elderly, but I can't answer you about the voluntary thing," she stated.
Dr. Eldemire-Shearer said the relationship she shared with her grandmother, plus the apparent absence of an advocate for the cause of the elderly were the major motivating factors.
"I got a bee in my bonnet about the fact that we were much more aggressive in terms of looking after and treating younger people when they became sick and I just decided that somebody needed to argue on behalf of older people," she stressed.
"I just found it a very, very personally rewarding area. You see them get better and you go home and know that some grandchildren or somebody's family has got back their mainstay."
The love she has for the elderly is obvious. But second to none was the love for her late husband, who was 27 years her senior. She loved him in life and even now in death. Just the mention of the name Hugh Shearer sends blood rushing to her face.
With a loving gaze at his picture and a mighty sigh, which spoke that she missed him in ways that defy definition, she said his gentleness and caring nature have been immortalised in her heart.
"I think we had a very good relationship ... he's just a special person," she said with a sparkle in her eyes. The couple had a long-standing relationship that spanned two decades but became man and wife in 1997. Dr. Eldemire-Shearer does not have any children but has been a surrogate mother to many.
After much hesitation, Mrs. Eldemire-Shearer said she wants to be chronicled in history as one who tried "to make a change in the life of older people for the better".
