The young doctor and nun Dr Ruth Pfau was actually on her way to India when problems with obtaining a visa forced her to make a stop in Karachi on 8^th March 1960. This stopover turned into fifty years of life dedicated to the poorest of the poor in the slums of this city port.

Known as the “angel of Karachi” or the “mother of persons affected by leprosy”, Dr Ruth Pfau has received countless awards, from the Dönhoff-Prize to the Albert Schweitzer Medal. Dr Pfau has lead the National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Programme in her chosen country of Pakistan for many years.

She was going to work as an intern and gynaecologist in India after appropriate training in Cologne and Bonn.  

During her unplanned stopover in Karachi Dr Pfau saw numerous persons with leprosy in the alleyways of the slums and helped them as much as she could. As there were almost no doctors providing care free of charge, more and more patients made their way to Dr Pfau. As Dr Pfau said on her 80^th Birthday on 9^th September 2009, her visit to the slum areas of Karachi turned out to be a decisive turning point in her life. She felt that she could not abandon these people who were streaming to her for her help and decided that God had willed her here to assist them.

Her order responded quickly and together with Dr Pfau the sisters founded the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre (MALC) – the first leprosy hospital in Pakistan. This later turned into the central building block of Pakistan’s national leprosy control programme.

Only one year after her arrival in Karachi, Dr Pfau began to receive support from ILEP Member the German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association (GLRA), support that has continued for over forty years and which recently lead to the establishment of the Ruth-Pfau-Foundation, which will help guarantee long term the life work of the angel of Karachi .

On International Women’s Day, 8^th March 2010, Dr Pfau was officially honoured for her work of the last fifty years, around which date Dr Pfau took a couple of days off, before returning to devote herself to her patients.

Photo: © DAHW / Bernd Hartung
Celebrating 50 years of service in Pakistan

Dr Pfau has always said: “I will only strike these people off my register, when they have not only been medically cured of leprosy, but can live like anyone who has never had leprosy”.

Life in brief

Ruth Pfau was born in Leipzig in 1929. When she was twenty she moved to West Germany to study medicine in Mainz and Marburg. During her student years Ruth Pfau found strength for life in Christian belief and was christened in 1953. Four years later she entered the order of the Sisters of the Heart of Mary. It was the time of the economic miracle; the beginnings of prosperity and euphoria over consumerism. Ruth Pfau wanted to escape this superficial life and concentrate on essentials. In 1960 her order sent her to Asia. 

Her early years in Pakistan were difficult. There was no health service upon which she could build. Dr Pfau has managed to win over bureaucrats and officials and removed fear of leprosy in Pakistan. Ruth Pfau and leprosy workers have managed to get the upper hand in the fight against leprosy in Pakistan, curing almost 50,000 people of leprosy. Because of a long incubation period, which can last decades, there are still around a thousand people a year diagnosed with leprosy. “We must stay on the ball for another two decades to wipe out leprosy from Pakistan” Dr Pfau estimates.   

Pakistan recognises Dr Pfau’s huge contribution to anti-leprosy efforts. She has been made an honorary citizen and, since 1979, she has been advising the government on all leprosy issues.

 

Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre: http://www.malc.org.pk/

The Karachi Electric Supply Company has been upgrading the electricity system at the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre with the installation of a dedicated transformer system, which will ensure uninterrupted supply of the correct voltage for the operating theatre, the x-ray machines and the lifts. 

Categories: News and Notes, Pakistan