Allow me a moment to add a little to the considerable homage being paid to the memory of Djamil Fareed, who passed away last week at the age of 75. An eminent consultant cardiologist and a caring knight, he also distinguished himself as a devoted and energetic World Health Organisation Representative in Africa.

He was involved, along with others, including a prominent psychiatrist, in the setting up in the mid-1970s, of a Student Health Monitoring Service at the University of Mauritius, interalia to ward off a growing epidemic of dubious medical certificates around examinations? time. That was a beginning, of a slender shoot, which was to grow massively into medical teaching, service and research, to supplement, support and enrich other multi-faceted, health-related activities, within and outside of the Réduit Campus, inclusive of the SSR Medical Centre.

There, and in many other ways, he showed laudable initiative, originality and drive, with a deep sense of fair play, humour and national pride, at the Ministry of Health and everywhere else. Without doubt, friends, colleagues and family, will miss his cheerful smile, cool logic, and immense tact.

What, perhaps, is more intriguing is that although bitten by the political bug, he nonetheless contrived to, somehow, escape therefrom more or less unscathed ? surely one of the greatest feats in his long, meritorious career of outstanding physician.

Professor J. Manrakhan