KARACHI: The devoted German-Pakistani humanitarian and founding member of the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre (MALC), Dr Ruth Katharina Martha Pfau, who passed away on August 10, was laid to rest at the Christian cemetery following a well-attended state funeral here on Saturday.

The Pakistan flag flew at half mast in the gentle morning breeze as her body, placed on a gun carriage, was brought to the entrance of St Patrick’s Cathedral where she was honoured with a 19-gun salute.

Dr Pfau used to say: “Love will have the last word.” And love was indeed in abundance at the state funeral as people laid bare their feelings for the great humanitarian, who was awarded Pakistan’s citizenship besides national awards like the Hilal-i-Imtiaz and Hilal-i-Pakistan.

The people whose lives she had touched in one way or the other had turned out in impressive numbers. A group of men from Swat, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gwadar waited patiently inside the cathedral for her body to arrive. Speaking about Dr Pfau would make them teary-eyed.

Khwaja Altaf from AJK told Dawn that he had received training and a diploma for treating skin ailments from Dr Pfau. “It was a two-year course initially. And then one could go for more advanced courses too,” he said.

When asked if Dr Pfau could speak Urdu, the man smiled through his tears. “Not just Urdu, she spoke Pahari with us.”

Karachi’s Civil Hospital renamed after the great humanitarian

Hazrat Umar, a technician from Swat, said he knew Dr Pfau for 40 years. “She was a great teacher. She would never get mad or angry with us. She treated everyone with love. It is that love which brought us here to bid our final goodbyes to her today,” he said.

Dr Pfau’s coffin was followed closely by the two individuals she used to call her sons — MALC’s chief executive officer Mervyn Lobo and Mohammad Iqbal of the centre’s statistics department.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Lobo said that Dr Pfau should not be remembered as the Mother Teresa of Pakistan. “She has her own identity; so please call her Ruth Pfau of Pakistan,” he said.

‘Visionary leader’

“Dr Pfau conquered not only leprosy by bringing it under control in Pakistan, she also conquered the hearts and souls of the people of Pakistan,” he said. “She was a visionary leader with her heart in the right place as she set up 157 leprosy centres all over the country. Even in the later part of her life she worked like there was no tomorrow,” he added.

Dr Mutaher Zia — one of the doctors at MALC who worked closely with Dr Pfau and who also wrote a book about her — said that she often used to tell her staff that she would not live forever and they would have to carry on the work with the same spirit without her.

Archbishop of Karachi Joseph Coutts, meanwhile, spoke about a girl born to Protestant parents who later became a Catholic nun of the order of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. “In 1957, she was on her way to India when she stopped over in Karachi to apply for an Indian visa. While waiting for the paperwork she went to a lepers’ colony at McLeod Road,” he said.

“People see missionaries as people who convert others but here was this German who after coming here was no longer a German; she was a Pakistani as she cared for the leprosy patients here,” said Archbishop Coutts.

“Dr Pfau used to say that God does not create rejects. Not only did she work with leprosy patients, she also helped patients suffering from tuberculosis and blindness,” said the archbishop. “And while doing so she created a beautiful harmony of cultures and faiths at MALC.”

He said that he would always remember a black car pulling up into the yard of the St Patrick’s Cathedral for the 6am service. “Dr Pfau had fractured her arm at an Afghan camp a few months ago and was too weak to get out of her car but she nonetheless attended the service while sitting in her car.”

People from many walks of life — including President Mamnoon Hussain, Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman, Deputy Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair and Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah — attended the great humanitarian’s funeral.

Later, Chief Minister Shah issued directives for renaming the Civil Hospital, Karachi, as the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital, Karachi, in recognition of the German-Pakistani physician’s services to humanity. He asked Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon to issue a notification in this regard.

The Civil Hospital, Karachi, was founded in 1898 during an outbreak of bubonic plague that killed at least 10 million people in pre-partition India over a period of 20 years. Lord Curzon, the then viceroy of India, visited the hospital in 1900 and unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark the platinum jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2017