Better Health For All

Dr. WCD Lovett, OBE, BSc, MBBCh (Wales), MD (London), DPH, DTM&H, FFPH. 

Donald Lovett died on 7 July 2018 at the age of 100 years. He qualified at the Welsh National School of Medicine, Cardiff in 1942 (and from London University as an external student in the same year). He served in the RAMC in Nigeria, Kenya and Somaliland and the experience gave him a taste for medical administration. 

Consequently he took the Diploma of Public Health at Queen’s Square, London in 1948, whilst in passing obtaining a Doctorate in Social Medicine from London University by examination in 1947. He impressed the viva examiners with his knowledge of the public health risks of the Haj that he had gained in Somaliland.

After a short spell as an Assistant County Medical Officer he joined the Colonial Medical Service and took up a posting in Somaliland as specialist in public health. The range of his responsibilities there was very wide, taking in inspecting abattoirs and a tuna canning factory, selecting land fill sites for refuse, planning and building a new hospital at Hargeisha, drawing up ‘standard architect drawings’ for housing (to ensure conformity with public health regulations), and mosquito and insect control. As part of the latter he carried out a successful relapsing fever eradication campaign, which he believed earned him the O.B.E. in 1958. He ran a vaccination and immunisation clinic and dealt with the medical aspects of famine relief, as well as dealing with a smallpox epidemic (alastrin). He drew up ration scales for prisons, schools and troops and revised the regulations for running medical services within the Protectorate. He assisted in the establishment of a system of tribal dressers, an intervention that would later be called ‘barefoot doctors’.

Whilst on home leave he studied for and obtained the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In 1957 Donald was promoted to Senior Medical Officer in Tanganyika taking up his first position in Mtwara, Southern Province. There he was responsible for the medical services for a population of one million. This involved the services provided by Christian missionaries as well as those run by the colonial government. He set up a TB domiciliary treatment scheme relying on the admixture of methylene blue to isoniazid tablets to facilitate monitoring of   patient treatment compliance. Those who took the tablets passed blue urine. Interestingly the provincial Senior Medical Officer was regarded as the local expert opinion on all clinical matters so Donald had to personally manage some challenging obstetric emergencies. 

Donald’s second Tanganyika posting was to Northern Province based in Arusha. His time there was however quite short as in 1959 he was promoted to Assistant Director of Medical Services based in Dar- es- Salaam. In that capacity he was involved in facilitating the transition to Independence with Africanisation of the administration. He also served as Director of the Dar-es-Salaam Red Cross running a scheme assisting local Asian young women to train as nurses in the UK. After Tanganyika’s independence, Donald remained and was particularly proud of his role with Maelor Evans, CMO, in setting up a Medical School in Dar-es-Salaam with a curriculum directed at public health training and clinical practice in rural conditions with limited facilities. He ended his Colonial service in 1963 as Acting Chief Medical Officer. 

Upon his return to the UK Donald embarked upon a new career in public health becoming Assistant Senior Administrative Medical officer with the Welsh Hospital Board in 1964. He remained in Cardiff for the rest of his life finally retiring in 1983 from his post as Principal Medical Officer at the Welsh Office. During this time he was in 1974 made a Member of the Faculty of Community Health(later the Faculty of Public Health Medicine ) and in 1976 elected to a Fellowship. He found being a medical administrator in the UK rather more constraining than in the Colonial Medical Service but did comment that managing a meeting of Welsh hospital group secretaries was little different to negotiating with Somali tribal elders under a village meeting tree.  

Donald’s colonial experience was made use of by his participation in two working parties under the aegis of first the Colonial Office and then the Ministry of Overseas Development, advising on the development of Health Services in two newly independent states, firstly in Guyana in 1965 and then in the Northern Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates) in 1969.  

Throughout his career Donald was ably supported by his wife Mary whom he had met in 1939 when he was a medical student and she was starting as a nurse.  Mary died in 2002 and they are survived by three sons, eight grand-children and twelve great grand-children.  

Written by Donald’s son, Dr Jonathan Lovett.