One of the most heart­en­ing as­pects of the last cou­ple days since the an­nounce­ment that for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was hos­pi­talised, re­port­ed­ly with a mild stroke, has been the ma­ture and hu­mane re­ac­tion of his po­lit­i­cal friends and foes. In­cum­bent Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­struct­ed that the best of med­ical care be ex­tend­ed to her pre­de­ces­sor. The as­sur­ance that the best the San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tal had to of­fer would be giv­en to Mr Man­ning was pro­vid­ed by Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan.

It is al­so sat­is­fy­ing that the doc­tors at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al in­di­cat­ed that the hos­pi­tal and health sys­tem here have the ca­pac­i­ty to ad­min­is­ter to Mr Man­ning's con­di­tion. That the fam­i­ly of Mr Man­ning feels com­fort­able with the ex­per­tise avail­able lo­cal­ly by in­di­cat­ing that there will not be a call for Cuban doc­tors to be brought to T&T adds con­fi­dence to the as­sur­ances from the doc­tors. Then there was Bas­deo Pan­day, the long-stand­ing po­lit­i­cal op­po­nent of Mr Man­ning, im­me­di­ate­ly turn­ing up at the bed­side of the for­mer leader of the PNM. That must have been a re­fresh­ing sight: The two for­mer lead­ers of their par­ties and the na­tion greet­ing each oth­er, one un­der­go­ing dif­fi­cult health prob­lems, the oth­er, who him­self has had health dif­fi­cul­ties over the years, seek­ing to cheer him up.

And one can imag­ine Mr Pan­day, giv­en his known ca­pac­i­ty for hu­mour, even in times of dif­fi­cul­ty, seek­ing to en­gage Mr Man­ning as a means of look­ing on the bright side of his present con­di­tion. But, of course, Mr Pan­day, who can be count­ed up­on to do the un­or­di­nary, turned up with his daugh­ter, Mikela, adding the very warm and par­tic­u­lar­ly Tri­ni prac­tice of re­fer­ring to old­er peo­ple, even when they are not blood rel­a­tives, as "un­cle" as a mark of re­spect. So too was it good to know that the present leader of the PNM, Dr Kei­th Row­ley and a num­ber of Mr Man­ning's PNM MP col­leagues vis­it­ed him at the hos­pi­tal, whether or not they got to be in the sick room of Mr Man­ning.

This news­pa­per joins with the fam­i­ly, friends and po­lit­i­cal PNM fam­i­ly of the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter to wish him a speedy and full re­cov­ery. At 65, Mr Man­ning re­mains a ma­ture man with loads of ex­pe­ri­ences to share in one ca­pac­i­ty or the oth­er with the na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Hav­ing spent 41 long years in the ser­vice of the coun­try in Par­lia­ment-both in gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion-with 13 of those years in the very de­mand­ing seat of the Prime Min­is­ter, Mr Man­ning de­serves the best health treat­ment the coun­try can ex­tend to him per­son­al­ly. So too should his wife Hazel and his two sons and oth­er close rel­a­tives be ex­tend­ed the cour­te­sies of the hos­pi­tal in San Fer­nan­do as they pray with and at­tend their loved one.

In this re­spect, those of a pray­ing spir­it should heed the call of Mrs Man­ning to pray for her hus­band as he seeks to climb over this par­tic­u­lar hur­dle fac­ing him. We are known to be a pray­ing peo­ple of gen­er­ous spir­it so it is ex­pect­ed that we would re­spond pos­i­tive­ly to the re­quest what­ev­er our re­li­gious back­grounds. We say the re­sponse of po­lit­i­cal friends and foes is en­cour­ag­ing be­cause too of­ten in our na­tion­al life, whether it be in pol­i­tics or not, we do not read­i­ly dis­play con­cern for the oth­er per­son. And that is al­ways sad as the so­ci­ety is one which has a his­tor­i­cal past of close vil­lage and com­mu­ni­ty life with neigh­bours (and not mere­ly those who live in close jux­ta­po­si­tion to each oth­er) look­ing out for those who they come in­to con­tact with. Get bet­ter soon, Mr Man­ning. You have the prayers of the na­tion with you.