Helen Jackson: GP who was dedicated to improving primary health care in the Maldives

Helen Jackson gently asked patients who arrived at the clinic where she practised in Malé, the capital of the Maldives, “Haalu kihineh? Rangalhu tha?”—“How are you? Are you okay?”

Primary care is held in low esteem in this South Asian island state, and patients often arrived at the capital’s dedicated pain clinic hoping to be seen by a specialist, rather than by Jackson, a British GP. They also arrived confused and in pain, carrying bags filled with paper records of years of interactions with medical professionals at small local clinics across the Maldivian atolls, in Malé, and in Indian cities.

“That was the thing that really drove Helen,” says Gordon, her husband. “That sense that these patients were in need of general practitioners to advocate for them and navigate their care.”

Jackson had lived in Eydhafushi, in the Maldives, since 2012. Eydhafushi is a picture postcard idyll of white sands and transparent waters, and was the perfect playground for the Jacksons’ four small children. Yet it has just one small hospital to serve its …