M. Audrey Stewart-Hinchcliffe celebrates 85 years
Published:Friday | January 17, 2025 | 11:49 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
As she celebrated her 85th birthday on Wednesday, stalwart entrepreneur M. Audrey Stewart-Hinchcliffe credited her good eating habits for sustaining her life to this moonstone year.
While in her 50s and before returning to her homeland Jamaica, Stewart-Hinchcliffe was diagnosed with diabetes and hypertension, and since then, she has taken her health and what she consumes daily more seriously. Now, 30 years later, the retired woman who helped to change the game for Jamaica’s janitors is rejoicing.
“I’m diabetic and hypertensive, so I tell myself, ‘My food is my medicine’, so I start out my day with a plate of food and black coffee. Mid-morning I have my breakfast which includes a protein. My afternoon, if I’m going to have lunch, I’m not having dinner. If I’m going to have dinner, I’m not having lunch, and I have a light snack before I go to bed,” Stewart-Hinchcliffe told GoodHeart on Wednesday evening during the birthday celebration dubbed MAH 85 at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in St Andrew.
“And I’ve never had an abnormal blood sugar. I don’t waver. I don’t cheat. I stick to my diet, and I make sure I’m well hydrated and my medication, I don’t fool around with it,” she said, adding that she was not only feeling healthy but wonderful and blessed.
“I’m still trying to think what I should feel like, and right about now, I feel healthy, I feel strong, I feel so honoured by the people around me, and I’m still searching [for] what it is [the age of 85 years] supposed to feel like,” the charismatic Stewart-Hinchcliffe said.
The ‘wash belly’ of 13 children, Stewart-Hinchcliffe said in the past she believed she would have hit three score years and ten, given that she has relatives who lived way into their 90th year. On location for the birthday celebration was one of her sisters, who is 90 years of age, and she has another sister, who is 92 years of age. She recently lost a sibling who was 85 years old.
Though retired, Stewart-Hinchcliffe still gets an early start and looks forward to researching, gardening, cooking and baking.
“I do research to support my writing and to support the business, and I’m always experimenting in the kitchen with cooking. I cook because I like to eat, and I’ll send the excess to the office. I’m always experimenting and baking and trying it out on them, and so, I’m a foodie,” she said.
Asked about her proudest accomplishments and moments in life, Stewart-Hinchcliffe said they are all connected with her two children and their birth, but her worst moments were when she fell into depression, especially after returning to live in Jamaica, and during the pandemic.
“I had to go for counselling... I could not understand why my own country didn’t want me, because I was overqualified as a health expert, so I went and became a janitor and became successful at it. Thanks to my clients at the Tony Thwaites Wing and the government of Jamaica who [were] crazy enough to accept my proposal when I said outsource hospital services,” Stewart-Hinchcliffe shared.
She said she then started Manpower and Maintenance Services Limited because she “couldn’t find any work”.
With experience from working in the regional health sector of the Caribbean, Stewart-Hinchcliffe had written a proposal to the government in a bid to win the janitorial services for the Spanish Town Hospital three decades ago, and won, breaking the barriers that held her back after returning to the island.
Stewart-Hinchcliffe has had a fulsome career which saw her work as a nurse, hospital administrator and college professor. She even served as director of nursing at the University Hospital of Jacksonville and later as a hospital administrator. She also worked with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Guyana as a health development officer for eight years.