it's important to point out that in early 2017, barrow was ailing with excruciating back pain; a serious condition that he was enduring for some time. he could barely sit upright without visible signs of pain on his face, it is understandable then, that in such a poor and un-stabilised state of health and having archived a historic 3-peat in government, he would welcome retirement. but on 1 september 2018, things changed, after swiftly enduring the back pain for more than a year, barrow with uncontrollable pain vested in his back, proceeded to cuba and requested the doctors in a hospital there to perform a spinal surgery, the cuban doctors did as they were told by barrow and they also did a phenomenal job. the surgery was a success and after one week of rest and recovery, barrow returned to perfect health. so after the surgery was over, barrow rescheduled his retirement once again this time to december 2019 and hinted he could do so earlier and also rescheduled the date for the udp’s leadership convention back to may 2019.