Ruth Pfau

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Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau FCM (born September 9, 1929 in Leipzig ; † August 10, 2017 in Karachi ) was a Roman Catholic nun of the Society of Daughters of the Heart of Mary and a gynecologist . She was best known for her work with lepers in Pakistan .

life and work

The fourth of five daughters left their home in Leipzig in 1949 and followed their father to the Trizone , from which the Federal Republic of Germany emerged in the same year . It began after successfully completing high school than nineteen at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz , a medical school , which she at the University of Marburg continued and the Dr. med. finished. During her student years she was moved by the search for a determining force for her life and found it in the Christian faith . Influenced by the philosopher Josef Pieper , she was baptized in 1951 and became a member of the Evangelical Church , but converted to the Roman Catholic Church in 1953 .

After completing her studies with the medical state examination , she completed her medical internship in the Winterberg Hospital ( Sauerland ). In 1957 she traveled to Paris and entered the religious community of the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary . After further medical studies - 1958 internal training in Cologne's Hildegardis Hospital , 1959 gynecological and obstetric training in the Elisabeth Hospital in Bonn - she was first sent by her order to India in 1960 , where she was supposed to work as a gynecologist . However, because of a visa problem she had in Karachi ( Pakistan make a stopover). Ruth Pfau stayed there, because the first encounter with people suffering from leprosy in a slum in Karachi was decisive for her whole life. She decided to build a hospital to fight leprosy. The Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center (MALC) has become an institution recognized throughout Pakistan; she ran this hospital she founded until 2013.

The Deutsche Lepra- und Tuberkulosehilfe eV (DAHW) has been one of the main sponsors of the leprosy and later also of the tuberculosis work of Ruth Pfau and her team in Pakistan since 1961.

In 1980 Ruth Pfau was appointed National Advisor with the rank of Secretary of State for the Leprosy and Tuberculosis Control Program for the Government of Pakistan. In 1996, leprosy in Pakistan was under control for the first time.

During a visit to prison, Ruth Pfau discovered that many people in custody were virtually blind . Since then she has been fighting unnecessary blindness in cooperation with the Christoffel Blind Mission .

Ruth Pfau died on August 10, 2017 of multiple organ failure as a result of an attack of weakness just a week earlier. She received a state funeral in the Christian cemetery in Karachi. President Mamnoon Hussain said in his mourning message that Pfau's death was a great loss for the country. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry recognized Pfau as a "national heroine" in a statement.

Fonts

literature

  • Michael Albus : Ruth Pfau. A life against leprosy. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1984, ISBN 3-491-79237-1 .
  • Irma Hildebrandt: The Leipzig - Karachi Adventure. Ruth Pfau (* 1929). In: Irma Hildebrandt: Great women. Portraits from five centuries. Hugendubel, Kreuzlingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7205-3049-1 , pp. 469-484 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  • Bengt Pflughaupt: With the eyes of love. Traveling as a reporter with an unusual woman in wild Pakistan. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2005, ISBN 3-451-28542-8 .
  • Inis Schönfelder: Angels about Karachi. How people make the impossible possible. Quell, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-7918-1991-7

Awards

Name sponsorships

Ruth Peacock School
  • In 1996, the German Leper Aid Organization established the Ruth Pfau Foundation , based in Würzburg , which is particularly active in "holistic health care, primarily in the field of global leprosy and tuberculosis control".
  • The vocational school center for health and social affairs in Leipzig has been called the Ruth Pfau School since December 10, 2010 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Press on the death of Dr Pfau. In: dahw.de. Retrieved August 10, 2017 .
  2. ^ State funeral for German leprosy doctor Ruth Pfau. In: tagesspiegel.de. August 19, 2017. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Pakistan: Ruth Pfau receives state funeral. In: Vatican Radio. Retrieved August 13, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Rupert Neudeck : " Ambassador des misery ", DZ No. 47 from Nov. 17, 2005; Speech at the award ceremony
  5. ↑ Prize Winner 2012 , Hubert Burda Media website on Bambi, accessed on February 13, 2016.
  6. ↑ Gudrun Sailer : “ Pakistan: Award for Leprosy Doctor and Religious ”, Vatican Radio , May 2, 2014
  7. ↑ Honor for Ruth Pfau in Freiburg
  8. ↑ Dr. Ruth Pfau: Google Doodle for the 90th birthday of the German nun and leprosy fighter - GWB. In: GoogleWatchBlog. September 8, 2019, accessed on September 8, 2019 (German).
  9. ^ Ruth Pfau Foundation: website .
  10. ^ Ruth Pfau Foundation
personal data
SURNAME Peacock, Ruth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pfau, Ruth Katherina Martha (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German nun and doctor
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 2017
Place of death Karachi