Dr Jaswinder Singh Bamrah is one of the country's leading doctors. He is a senior consultant psychiatrist in Manchester and an Honorary Reader at University of Manchester. Until recently he was Medical Director at Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust. He is a Director and Council member of the BMA. He is also the National Chairman of British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin. He is a trustee of two charitable organisations – LMCP charity for disadvantaged people from the South Asian community and the African and Caribbean Mental Health Services.
He has around 40 medical publications and nearly 100 in the tabloid press. He has appeared on several radio shows including Radio 4 and Radio 5 live, and on regional TV. He lectures on a range of subjects nationally and abroad.
JS is past Council member and immediate past Director of CPD of Royal College of Psychiatrists. He is past President of the Section of Psychiatry, Manchester Medical Society and past Chair of BMA’s Psychiatry committee.
1) What is your current position?
I have a few. I am one of three elected Directors of the British Medical Association (BMA) and Council Member of the BMA. The BMA has over 160,000 members and is a professional organisation and a trade union. I am National Chairman of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), probably the largest ethnic medical organisation in the UK. Other positions are Consultant Psychiatrist, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust; Honorary Reader, University of Manchester; Trustee, LMCP registered charity; Trustee, African and Caribbean Mental Health charity.
2) What are your proudest achievements?
Apart from my three children, I have a sense of achievement whenever I raise the profile of mental health issues or expose the inequalities that exist against mental illness and black and ethnic minority groups. Any recognition I get for these issues helps to raise the profile further, so I have had a lifetime achievement award for my long commitment to Manchester mental health services, I was nominated as one of 100 BME leaders by the Health Service Journal in 2014, and in the same year I was given an award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to BAPIO’. I am one of few UK psychiatrists to figure in Marquis’ Who’s Who. In 2013, I was awarded a Special Professional award by Asian Lite for the causes I represent and in 2010 along came an Association Medal for services to the BMA. In 2001 I was one of 100 doctors invited to Downing Street for providing a ‘Distinguished Service to the NHS’.
3) What inspires you?
I am inspired by causes – and then I look to people who are passionate about these. On the way, there have been a few but I will save them the embarrassment of being named. Many have been my patients who have shown grit and resilience.
4) What has been the biggest obstacle in your career?
Attitudes and prejudices would be right up there. As a psychiatrist, I often see how these are played out in public but there again protectionism is another side of that coin that can be equally damaging. Regardless of these, I would say that the real obstacles are within ourselves. I often quote Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian poet, who says “I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present”. I remind myself of this to dispel the dark forces!
5) Who has been the biggest influence on your career to date?
Without any doubt my parents; my now deceased father whose organisational ability I have inherited and who was very particular about relationships, and my mother who still has a quest for education and remains the most supremely optimistic character I have ever seen! And of course my wife for providing me with a stability at home which has absorbed many of the stresses of a busy working life.
6) What is the best aspect about your current role?
I enjoy a certain flexibility so I can almost chose what I want to do. I now have the time to get into the detail of what I enjoy doing, and in this my two charities, the African and Caribbean Mental Health Services and LMCP figure right up there. And there are other passionate causes such as the NHS, mentoring younger medical colleagues, and education.
7) And the worst?
The worst part is seeing the NHS fragmented and dismantled by ideologically-driven politicians who do not understand its core values and commissioners who are, frankly, incompetent. If I could put them on Mars on their own, I would.
8) What are your long term goals?
That would be to realise my dream that ‘there is no health without mental health’. Stigma of mental illness is widespread amongst the public, and probably the worst offenders are my fellow medical colleagues. Often stigma is more damaging than the illness itself. But this goal is not a pipe dream – I see pockets of change in many places.
9) If you were Prime Minister, what one aspect would you change?
Gosh, I am not sure I want to step into Mrs May’s Brexit shoes! But seriously, and perhaps this is my own bias, there is a lot of stuff about immigrants that is really unhelpful. As an immigrant from East Africa, I feel that we have become political pawns. There are many services that would collapse without immigrants, and as I see now, the NHS is struggling without recruitment from overseas. I would detoxify that rhetoric about immigration. And I would do something about the growing gap between the filthy rich and the poor.
10) If you were marooned on a desert island, which historical figure would you like to spend your time with and why?
I guess that would be two people: the first Sikh Guru, Nanak, who brought an understanding of tolerance and bridging gaps between different communities at a time of atrocities by Moghuls in India, and an ethos of learning – hence the word ‘Sikh’. And the other person would be Mohammed Ali, whose autobiography ‘The Greatest: My Own Story’ really inspired me in my fourth year in medical school. Ali (fighter, poet, lover, provocateur extraordinaire) is probably a generation apart from all of us in being able to push on attitudes and prejudices, and yet remain so admired by many. I’d love to put him on a couch!
