She was the woman who led the City of Toronto through its worst health dilemma in modern times - the SARS crisis. But while she kept so many of us healthy, she sadly couldn't perform that same miracle for herself.
Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto and Ontario's former Chief Medical Officer of Health, died Monday. She had been diagnosed more than a year ago with a rare form of cancer, but had been struggling courageously to overcome its devastating effects.
It was Basrur who was front and centre during the two-pronged SARS disaster, answering questions from reporters and the public in a straightforward and calm manner, trying to dispel myths about the mostly unknown ailment, explaining how it was spread and why so many reluctant people had to be put into quarantine.
She seemed to be everywhere during those terrible few months in 2003, holding press conferences in the early morning, returning in the afternoon and coming out exhausted at night with yet another update. For her efforts, she was promoted from Toronto's to Ontario's Chief Medical Officer.
It was a post she held until 2006, when she confirmed with the candor she'd always displayed in other facets of her life that she'd been diagnosed with a
rare form of brain cancer. She was only briefly seen in public after that, most recently
emerging in April to receive the prestigious Order of Ontario for her service during the SARS outbreak.
Basrur came by her love of Toronto and its people honestly. She was born here in 1956 and got her medical degree from the U. of T. She practiced in Guelph for a year and spent time in both Nepal and India, which helped spark her interest in the unique problems of public health.
By the time she went back to the U. of T to specialize in community health and epidemiology, her career course was set. She dedicated the rest of her life to keeping an eye on the health of the city and eventually became a professor at the very university where she'd learned so much.
When the city of Toronto was amalgamated, the woman who headed the East York health unit was the overwhelming choice to repeat that task for the new entity.
It was Basrur who launched the Smoke-Free Ontario strategy that has made this province one of the toughest on cigarettes in Canada - including relegating puffers in bars and restaurants to the great outdoors.
She was instrumental in getting pesticides banned in the city.
And she pioneered something else you've likely seen many times but never realized had her imprint on it - the
Dine Safe program in every Toronto restaurant, that displays a system of red, yellow and green signs designed to assure consumers health inspectors have examined the premises and deemed them fit to serve food in a clean environment.
"We put those horror stories of cockroaches and mice to become a thing of the past," she explained.
She also held honourary doctorates from Ryerson Polytechnic University and York University and was named an honourary member of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario.
And while Basrur led us through the SARS wilderness, she was also preparing us for another big threat that thankfully hasn't come - the long predicted flu pandemic. "Ontario has actually got a very strong pandemic plan that is one of the flagship plans in the country," she assured in 2004.
The doctor was also a familiar face here at
Citytv, hosting a weekly talk show on health and giving out the kind of frank answers she'd become famous for. But even after revealing her own dangerous diagnosis - and its likely terrible outcome - Basrur never lost her confidence or her sense of humour.
"These very toxic treatment regimes have been given, you know, through the right orifice and in the right way," she once made clear about what she was going through. "There's so many to choose from."
A private funeral followed by a later public tribute will be held for the doctor, who became a kind of reluctant but much admired celebrity known for her honesty, ability to make the difficult seem easily understandable and above all, her courage in the face of an unknown enemy she'd fought all her life - the same kind of disease that ultimately took her life.
During the last days of her illness, Basrur went out the same way she'd lived - with class. "You should always believe in the beauty of your dreams," she made clear in one of her final public speeches. "I've always believed in the beauty of mine, although I didn't realize it until this very moment."
She leaves her parents and her very proud daughter, Simone, behind.
Basrur was just 51.
Tributes pour in