adminLethokuhle Moyo/ Thubelihle Mabhena Chronicle Reporters
THE Founder of St Luke’s Hospital Dr Johanna Franziska Davis has died. She was 96. A Catholic medical missionary doctor, Dr Davies died last week at a home for retired catholic staff in Kumalo suburb in Bulawayo due to complications related to old age.
She was declared a liberation war heroine and buried yesterday at Athlone Cemetery .
Relatives, friends, and politicians from across the political divide thronged the cemetery to bid her farewell.
Addressing mourners before her burial, Matabeleland North Provincial Administrator, Latiso Dlamini said the government had seen it befitting to bestow the late Dr Davis with liberation heroine status.
“His Excellency, the President and First Secretary of Zanu-PF, Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe has conferred Liberation Heroine status on the late Dr Davis,” said Dlamini.
The Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Bulawayo, Alex Thomas Kaliyanil described Dr Davis as a hard worker who strived to heal the sick and help the needy.
“She arrived in Zimbabwe in November 1947 and worked tirelessly as a missionary doctor till 2002 when she retired at the age of 84,” said Bishop Thomas.
“She represented God’s love manifested in human form. Dr Davis was able to save many lives at St Lukes hospital. She wasn’t motivated by her salary but by her service to the people.”
He added that Dr Davis stood by the people of Lupane in the most difficult times during the liberation struggle and the post-independence conflict in the country.
Dr Mo Ikeogu described Dr Davis as a medical practitioner of a distinct calibre who had profound knowledge in medicine.
“At the turn of the millennium the United Nations asked each country to nominate a doctor of the century and I nominated Dr Davis .The reason why she didn’t get the prize is because she was a woman,” said Dr Ikeogu.
“This happens all the time in medicine where women aren’t given credit for their work. For example, a French woman discovered DNA and she wasn’t recognised or even allowed to present her case for the simple reason that she was a woman. She got recognition (the prize) years after her death.”
Dr Davis came to Zimbabwe by sea in 1947 and started working at Fatima Mission in 1950. She played a leading role in the establishment of St Lukes hospital in Lupane and St Anne’s hospital in Brunapeg.
The youngest daughter in a family of six, the missionary came from a family with a strong, traditional catholic background that supported her decision to come to Bulawayo.
Davis later joined the Medical Mission Institute (MMI) at Wurzburg and qualified as a doctor at the University of Munich in 1943. She arrived in Bulawayo on December 13, 1948.
“Yet I felt my vocation was to practise medicine for the poor following the call of Christ ‘to go out into the whole world and spread the good news, preaching, healing and baptising’. In my heart, there was no clamour to become rich; just a desire to serve God,” Dr Davis wrote in her autobiography ‘Mission Accomplished’, chronicling her work in Zimbabwe.
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