My sister Anne Phillips, who has died aged 90, was a doctor who devoted her life to caring for sick people in Nigeria. After studying medicine in Birmingham, much of her work took place in or around the city of Onitsha, where she eventually became director of diocesan medical services, supervising seven rural hospitals and health centres.
Anne was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, to Reuben Calladine, a colliery clerk, and his wife, Mabel (nee Boam), a primary school teacher. She was attracted to the life of a medical missionary as a child, and after Nottingham girls’ high school she studied medicine at Birmingham University, where she met her future husband, John Phillips, a fellow student.
She embarked on her medical career in Nigeria soon after marrying John in 1954. They first spent three years in Onitsha: Anne worked at Iyi-Enu hospital there, and rapidly discovered how to practise medicine with rudimentary facilities, while John taught at the local grammar school.
In 1958 they moved to Emevor, a remote village in the Niger delta, where John became headteacher of a newly founded boys’ boarding grammar school. Anne set up a village clinic that attracted patients from a wide area, with eight different language groups – there were boys in the school who acted as interpreters for all of them. John had two Nigerians on his teaching staff, but none of the three taught maths or science, so Anne perforce became a teacher and set up a school science laboratory. She also looked after the medical needs of the boys.
After seven years in Emevor the couple moved back to their former posts in Onitsha. During the Biafran war, when Onitsha was in the frontline, they moved away to take temporary posts in Sierra Leone and central Nigeria, but when hostilities died down in 1971 they returned to Onitsha and Anne resumed work at Iyi-Enu, which was being rebuilt after near-destruction.
From 1978 to 1987 she was the hospital’s medical superintendent, and for six years from 1987 onwards she was director of diocesan medical services.
In 1993 Anne and John retired to Sheffield, where John died suddenly in 1995. She worked there in general practice, chaired the local Sue Ryder group, and became deputy churchwarden of the cathedral before moving to Cambridge in 2015.
A kind, considerate lady with a great sense of humour, she always put others before herself, and was a godparent to 40 children. She is survived by me.
