Content area

Full Text

When Sylvia Gyde was appointed district medical officer for North Birmingham Health Authority in 1989 she was described by the Birmingham Post as “a tornado,” thanks to her emphasis on preventive medicine. “What the health service does is nothing to do with health. It is picking up the tabs on the sick,” she declared. “Very little money goes into trying to persuade people into living lifestyles that might promote health.”

Such comments didn’t always endear her to her colleagues, and she told of being “subjected to frequent male intimidation, harassment, and pay inequality.” Her husband recalled that on one occasion the BMA even sent an officer to provide support in tackling the sexism she experienced.

Tackling sexism was something Gyde was used to. In 1981 she took issue with the author Anthony Burgess over an article he wrote for the Observer saying that he assessed female doctors and solicitors sexually while talking to them, which he said distracted him and degraded the women in question. She wrote in a letter to the paper, “Throughout my life I have been distracted while listening to male lecturers, solicitors, writers, etc by assessing them sexually whilst they are talking. This certainly distracts me. Does it degrade the men?”

Her contributions to public health included a major study of perinatal mortality rates in the West Midlands that examined 250 baby deaths and involved interviews with doctors, midwives, and mothers. “It was clear that the biggest potential for reducing perinatal deaths...

Show less