When the lovely Patricia Chase-Greene joined the Georgetown City
Council in the early 1990’s, she was just a young nurse who had nothing like politics in mind. But today, she is experienced enough to say, “You can really trust no one in politics.”

The feisty 63-year-old can never forget the day she was approached by Mayor Hamilton Green to join his ‘Good and Green Environmental Group’ that was set to contest the Mayoral Elections in the early 1990s. She joined up as a candidate and the group was successful.
The members must have been elated at their win, but such happiness was but short-lived. “When I came into City Hall in 1992, that’s when things really changed. We were hampered to the maximum by the then government. You sit at the round table and are told one thing, but by the time you leave the room, it changes.”
Today, though, Chase-Green said it is a wonderful feeling for her to hold the post of Deputy Mayor under the present administration. “The minister has said quite publicly that he will not interfere in the operations of the Council. This gives you a sense of belonging. You are able to do your job; something that you ought to have been doing 23 years ago!”
In fact, work has already commenced on restoring City Hall’s building to its former gothic glory, and workers of the council can be seen in every corner of the city. “We were not able to do this in the past. We were only able to do what the minister wanted. Well, that shadow of darkness is gone. This city is going to be transformed into the beautiful city it once was, ” Chase-Green enthused in an interview with the Chronicle at her City Hall Office last Wednesday.
Chase-Green views it as an honour to be working along with a veteran like Mayor Hamilton Green, but she acknowledged that they have inherited a “broken system” which needs to be fixed. “The Municipal and District Council’s Act, of which the laws of City Hall are fashioned after, should be our Bible,” she believes.

Nursing Career

Chase-Green was born and raised in New Amsterdam, Berbice, and spent 38 years of her life as a nurse. She is married to Mr. Lennox Terrence Green, a former national boxer, and their three children are Richard, Sherma and Terrence. She is grandmother to nine and great grandmother to one. “Life has always been good for me,” she says.

Observing the attitude of nurses back in her childhood days fostered in her a desire to want to help people, and she credits this as her reason for entering the profession. She volunteered with the Red Cross in New Amsterdam before making her way to Georgetown to work as a nurse at West Demerara, Bellevue and Woodlands Hospitals, and the paramilitary Guyana National Service (GNS), among several other institutions.
She was eventually sent to be trained at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation as a nursing assistant and midwife. While here, she spent most of her time at the Accident and Emergency Department.
Chase-Green then worked with Banks DIH as an Industrial Nurse, and later, as the company’s Occupational Safety and Health Officer.
Although she retired from her nursing profession three years ago, Chase-Green still helps out whenever she is called upon. “I still do nursing in the community where I live. I now do volunteer work.”
Restoring Georgetown
Chase-Green has big plans for Georgetown. Her desire is for citizens to have a city that can be admired; and in this vein, she noted the garbage situation that pops up ever so often will have to be addressed.
“Also, (I want) to ensure that all our parks, playfields and avenues (are restored). As a child, when I was taken for walks in the avenues and gardens to listen to the police band, that beautiful atmosphere that we had (in which) you could easily go down the avenue and have a seat, I would love to see those avenues done over.
“I would love to see the children in all the communities having their playfields to play (in); many are now overgrow with bush. In any part of the world, the city is the first place people look to get an idea of the country.
“People come to Georgetown and think Georgetown (in its present state) is Guyana. No, it’s not! We have other beautiful places that (they) can visit. But the image that you see in the city is the one you will take with you all the time. I would like to see how best we could change this image, so we could all admire it and live comfortably in it,” she disclosed.

Plain-Spoken
Chase-Green often comes across as a very serious individual — a no-nonsense person who can be quite intimidating at times. “Persons may feel I’m not approachable and may be fearful of coming forward to me, but when they do make contact with me, they realise it’s not what they see on the outside. Sometimes you’re not always in a laughing mood, and may have your face serious the same time somebody wants to talk to you. Once they get to know me, though, they realise that I’m approachable. The facial look is just the facial look. It’s not the person whom they may see.”
Nothing displeases her as much as dishonesty does. “Not only in stealing, but if I ask you a question, be honest and give me an honest answer. Don’t be untruthful to me in an answer. Dishonesty upsets me greatly, because I believe that ‘honesty is the best policy.’ It just trips me.”
The Deputy Mayor is a very plain-spoken individual who tells it like it is. However, this does not mean that she would burden herself with malice. “After I speak to you, I’m done with it, because I like to be a free-minded person and not carry a burden for somebody else.”
She lives by the motto, “What the mind of a man can conceive and believe, he can achieve.”

By Telesha Ramnarine