Biography. On the political stage, Antoni Marí Calbet promoted the Mental Health & Social Welfare Board and the Cas Serres Assisted Living Hospital, among other basic services. But, as a health professional, he had already had a career that has earned him the Medal of Merit from the College of Physicians of the Balearic Islands, leading projects such as the vaccination of 970,000 Congolese people to eradicate smallpox.
The image of Antoni Marí Calbet shared by most Ibizans is that of a man with a firm and forceful character, especially when he had to defend his views in Mallorca during his twelve years as president of the then Consell de Ibiza y Formentera (Ibiza and Formentera Council). However, his energetic personality, far removed from the political correctness and soapbox speeches that prevail nowadays, is not the trait that has most caught the attention of Enrique Garcerán, his family doctor for the last 12 years.
Marí Calbet, sailing on the river Lopori.
“I meet a man with his own vulnerabilities, very tender, concerned for his family and delighted to welcome his grandchildren into his home”, he stresses. Garcerán has delved into the biography of his patient, going beyond professional ethics. As well as being a health professional, he is passionate about audiovisual production and has been involved in the documentary ‘Antoni Marí Calbet. Ibizan, medic, president’.
During the smallpox vaccination campaign in 1968. D.I.
At the moment, he has ten hours of interviews and has yet to compile more testimonies to cover all sides of the protagonist, but he was already able to present a preview last Friday, during the ceremony at which Marí Calbet was awarded the Medal of Merit from the College of Physicians of the Balearic Islands. His contribution to improving healthcare goes beyond the island and achieves a universal dimension, as this Ibizan, born in the Marina in 1932, played a key role in the eradication of smallpox in the Congo.
His vocation came early. “As a child I already liked to open up lizards or other creatures and look inside”, he says in the documentary. At a time when there were hardly any young people leaving Ibiza to study, he convinced his father, a merchant in the Marina, to let him enroll at the Faculty of Medicine in Valencia.
The Ibizan doctor, in a village in the jungle with some nuns, in an image from the documentary about his life. DI
During his time at university he met a young French woman who was studying Spanish, Maryse Rennesson, who would become his lifelong companion. In his fourth year, he also met someone he had mutual friends with and who was only visiting Valencia, but who would play a key role in his professional career.
The young doctor poses in the hospital in Gemena, where a storm had destroyed the roof. DI
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