German physician Dr Chris Schmotzer has been working with leprosy patients in Pakistan for 29 years. She has been providing them with medical care and counselling. Lepers were declared untouchables in the past and would go to the Rawalpindi Leprosy Hospital to get shelter. The hospital was established in 1904 by American botanist Dr Ralph Stewart, who was also the principal of the Gordon College, and has remained a safe abode for lepers from the northern part of the Indian Subcontinent.

The German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association took over the hospital in 1966 and has been run by German doctors since. Dr Schmotzer arrived in Pakistan in 1988 and joined the hospital as medical director.

Dawn caught up with her to talk about her work.

Q: How did you decide to work with leprosy patients?

A: I went to Africa for training after my post graduation in medical and saw the misery of leprosy patients and the complications they face. It was then that I decided to help patients and help them live a normal life.

When I came to Pakistan, I found that people consider leprosy to be an incurable disease and I have been working since to make people understand that this is just another skin disease which needs proper care and regular medication.

People usually don’t know that an early diagnosis will help them get rid of the disease. The problem here is that people hesitate to get their skin diseases checked.

Q: How is Pakistan faring in terms of the number of leprosy cases?

A: Leprosy is a success story in Pakistan and its prevalence is decreasing with time. When I first came to Pakistan, around 1,000 cases were reported in a year, which has now decreased to 400 a year.

Most of the patients come from the hilly areas of the country. The Rawalpindi Leprosy Hospital has established centres in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and various cities in Punjab.

If treatment is not started at an early stage, the life of a leper is miserable. Blindness, weak muscles, the inability to flex feet, disfiguration of the face and infertility are complications of leprosy.

We have therefore started a campaign to raise awareness about the importance of early treatment, which takes about six months to a year. We are trying to tell people that the families of patients should also have themselves checked by a doctor.

We also treat tuberculosis (TB) patients, which is more prevalent than leprosy. Those TB or leprosy patients with diabetes suffer even more complications.

Q: What are some of the difficulties you face when treating patients, especially in the remote areas?

A: It is difficult to convince people to take care of their health. They want quick results but the treatments for leprosy and TB take from six months to a year. We also make arrangements at the Rawalpindi Leprosy Hospital for food for patients in the outpatient department because they have the medicine but cannot get food.

Q: How has your experience of working in Pakistan been?

A: The people of this country are very friendly and respect doctors and those who help them, especially foreigners. I also get a lot of respect from the people in remote areas, when we go to visit patients.

But there are some differences between the German and Pakistani people in that Germans are more health conscious and Pakistanis are not. People here do not exercise often and do not eat properly, which has implications on their health.

I have to tell patients that their medicines will only work properly when they are on a proper diet but they don’t listen. Poverty is also one of the major reasons that people are malnourished and diabetes is affecting a third of the population. People here need to change their eating habits.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2017