Dr Seemin Jamali, the Iron Lady, bomb-proof lady and even the dog-bite lady, who was the force behind the incredible transformation of Karachi’s largest most difficult government hospital, passed away surrounded by family on Saturday evening May 27 at Aga Khan University Hospital after suffering from months of cancer.

Her funeral prayers was held at JPMC Mosque at Asr on Sunday and she was laid to rest in Defense Phase 8 graveyard.

The soyem has been scheduled for Monday, May 29, between Asr and Maghrib at the JPMC Mosque for men and at House C-1 at JPMC’s Doctors Colony.

Dr Seemin retired from service as Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre’s (JPMC) executive director in August 2021 after serving the institution for almost 33 years. Her name was synonymous with the hospital.

It is impossible to do justice to her career in one obituary of a few hundred words. Almost everyone in Karachi knew her name. She ran Jinnah hospital’s casualty during the city’s bloodiest years of bomb blasts and street violence. Without her this city would have had a much higher death toll. She was so well known that when the Nishtar Park bomb blast decimated the Sunni Tehreek’s leadership in 2006, a little boy turned up in a vest clutching something wrapped around his stained kameez, saying he would only speak to Dr Seemin. He was the brother of the suicide bomber and had brought his brother’s head to her.

If you walked in to the ER to see her, you would be offered a cup of strong tea with her secret recipe: a pinch of coffee. In between your conversation with her, work would never stop. Nurses, doctors and sweepers would steadily cower at the door as she issued sharp clear no-nonsense instructions. Her beringed fingers would dance in the air as she fired forth. JPMC’s ER was the tightest ship run this side of the equator.

For the people of Karachi and beyond she was a household name, her face and unmistakable tobacco-coloured mane was recognised from all the media talks she gave after the bomb blasts. She had a measured calm tone always. She responded to, befriended and gave her time to the press corps always, as they scrambled to report on the violence. Of course, she grew annoyed many times and even banned cameras from the ER when they interfered with emergencies, but for the most part reporters admired and respected her. Till a few days before she was hosptailised for the last time, she was still active on their WhatsApp groups.

Beyond the ER, Dr Seemin was a champion of the dog-bite vaccine and crusaded in this cause. Children from far-off villages would find their only hope at her ER where she would pull every string to ensure the expensive injections were made available.

When even ERs were attacked

Dr Seemin was born in 1961 in Lahore. She joined JPMC as a medical officer in 1988 after completing her medical education in Nawabshah and a house job at Civil Hospital, Karachi. She had topped the Federal Public Service Commission exam. It was her father’s wish to join the government service as she had also cleared the exams of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases and Aga Khan University Hospital. Her father, one of Sindh’s well-respected civil servants, GD Memon, was perhaps an inspiration for her method of work later on.

In 1993, she acquired a degree in public health management from Thailand and was appointed as the in-charge of JPMC’s emergency department in 1995. Later, she was awarded a scholarship for a post-doctoral fellowship in public health policy and injury prevention at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore. Dr Seemin became the hospital’s joint executive director in 2010 and then executive director after six years.

“The city of Karachi once badly affected by violence owes a lot to Dr Seemin who saved countless lives in the JPMC’s emergency department by relentlessly working in those testing times,” Dr Mirza Ali Azhar, the-then president of the Pakistan Medical Association-Sindh, told Dawn on August 19, 2021.

In her own words, emergency means “you should be prepared” and so was she when a bomb blast occurred in the JPMC’s emergency department on February 5, 2010. It was a time when the city of lights was being terrorised by frequent violence.

“The explosion was so powerful that half of the emergency was broken,” Dr Seemin told Aaj News’ show Meri JadoJehad as she shared the unbelievable story of the hospital’s emergency unit and how she changed the game. The February 5 blast took place when the hospital was already receiving casualties of a bus ambush.

The ER was targeted since it was near the site of the attack. But, she and her team managed to shift patients to other wards and hospitals. She also handled a shootout in the emergency when violence from the street level followed into the hospital. Men attacking each other ended up in the ER, recognised each other in the beds and opened fire.

To her team’s credit, none of these stupidities fazed the nurses and paramedics who had looked into the maw of death. “We stood with a belief that there would be a day when we would say God ended all this and peace is prevailing in our country,” she said in the same interview.

Challenges

At the time when Dr Seemin completed college young women had very limited career options: teacher, doctor, or a Bachelor’s of Arts degree.

Working in an emergency was an eye-opener for her. She believed that she worked like any army personnel while not having such training. This is maybe because she aimed for joining the army or police in her childhood.

She admitted once that as a woman she saw “a lot of things” while working in a male-dominated society. “Women empowerment is not acceptable to the other community,” she said. But, she also concedes that the Sindh government “treated her well” and helped her renovate the emergency department. Dr Seemin was a master networker, who knew how to maintain cordial relations in the corridors of power without necesssarily compromising on her own opinion.

The Rangers, intelligence agencies, army top brass, political party heads, business tycoons and other influential members of society from the top of the country down to Karachi rarely came away from a meeting with her without feeling as if their work had been done. Her charm, her dimples when she smiled, were the secret weapon.

But as any bureaucrat who has to navigate the system can be, Dr Seemin had her fair share of enemies. Jinnah hospital is a massive institution to run with many competing power struggles playing out behind the scenes. Dr Seemin was, however, singularly talented in figuring out ways to work with the most odious of people. If she did not like you, you knew. And if she supported you, you could be bullet-proof.

Beyond the hospital

Dr Seemin lived most of her life behind JPMC’s main complex in the doctor’s colony on campus. As she was a workaholic, she was never far from the ER.

She had a penchant for shoes and used to laugh that she was like Imelda Marcos with the hundreds of pairs. She liked taking long drives sometimes and loved a good gossip session. Her designer friends would send her clothes, lacy colour-coordinated suits which she delighted in. She did not take many foreign trips and you almost never heard of her on vacation or even leave. She was always plugged in to the hospital.

She inherited an enviable head of hair from her father’s side, a leonine mane which almost took on a life of its own. She would complain of having so much hair sometimes and her hairdresser had to keep trimming it back. She did not wear much make-up, just lashings of kohl and lipstick.

She rarely entertained at her small flat in the early days before she moved in to a larger house at the colony and preferred to host dinners at PC or Sheraton. After she retired she threw herself a massive farewell party at PC and invited everyone she wanted to thank for supporting her.

Recognition

Her achievements included several initiatives launched for the first time in the public sector in Sindh; the launch of an emergency care training programme at JPMC, the establishment of a morgue and dog-bite treatment centre.

She was recognised as a ‘global hero’ by the World Health Organisation for her services during the coronavirus pandemic. The hospital, under her supervision, was declared the first focal hospital after it set up two Covid units in a short time span.

Dr Seemin’s lifetime of service was recognised with numerous awards including the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz in 2019, the Women’s High Achievement award, and the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel. She enjoyed the limelight and loved the official pomp and splendour that came with their ceremonies.

In an interview with The Express Tribune a day before her retirement, she said: “Nobody can say I have ever refused service to anyone coming to this hospital. I worked without prejudice.”

Towards the end

Being diagnosed with colon cancer was perhaps the last challenge for her and her family as it came when her son OJ was abroad and her husband was admitted to hospital after contracting Covid-19. She returned to work after two days.

After this, she started taking days off only to have chemotherapy.

She is survived by her husband, well-known orthopaedic surgeon Dr AR Jamali and sons OJ or Omar Jamali and Babar.

With writing by Mahim Maher.