A fireball of energy, Judith Darmady was a doctor who made a difference to the lives of children in the UK and around the world.
Following a career as a consultant paediatrician, she became involved in an orphanage in Romania, which led her on to global charity work.
Judith Darmady was born in London in 1935, and at an early age moved down to a small village near Salisbury. Her father, Michael Darmady, was a pathologist working initially at Salisbury Hospital, then an RAF doctor at RAF Wroughton during the Second World War. Frustrated by seeing many of the repatriated wounded soldiers dying of acute renal failure, he led the construction and clinical use of the first artificial kidney machine in the UK.
Judith was educated at Goldophin School, where she initially struggled, probably due to dyslexia. She was later thrilled to become a governor at the school. She was determined to be a doctor, partly because of her father’s work, but also after being involved with medical care when her brother John had a serious head injury.
She won a place at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, London, and joined a relatively small number of women there at that time. The male and female students had separate common rooms, and so she had to arrange to play bridge with male students in the corridor. She qualified in 1961 and found her calling, specialising in paediatrics.
Following junior posts at Portsmouth and Southampton, she worked at the Cleveland Clinic in the USA between 1964 and 1966.
She returned to the UK as a senior lecturer in child health at Southampton General Hospital and was involved in research as a fellow at the Institute of Child Health, Hammersmith. One of her interests was cholesterol in infancy.
She was appointed as a consultant paediatrician to Basingstoke Hospital in 1972, where she worked for 23 years. Her contract was one of the first in the UK to include community paediatrics sessions. She gained expertise in disability, cystic fibrosis and childhood cancer.
In 1996 she became a founding fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
She was devoted to her work; one of her patients wrote: ‘Dr Darmady always went beyond the line of duty, arriving on the ward early in the morning and popping in late at night to check on her patients. She is kind, caring and loving, giving the reassurance and encouragement so greatly needed when you are very ill.’
She did not marry or have children of her own, but had 22 godchildren. She was incredibly sociable and loved having friends around.
While she was still working at Basingstoke Hospital, she answered an appeal from the Romanian Orphanage Trust for a consultant paediatrician specialising in caring for children with special needs. She was given a 6-month sabbatical to go to Romania to help with one of the many orphanages that were a legacy of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s regime of promoting population growth. The unintended consequence was the abandonment of children who were deemed ‘incurable’ after failing tests aged 3 years old.
On her arrival at Ungureni, a village in the north of the country, she was faced with children who were so undernourished that their ages could not be determined, and toddlers with legs and arms tied to beds. She got to work straight away, and she set up the Ungureni Trust on her return to the UK. Her drive and determination, along with her charm, were perfect skills for fundraising.
The trust paid for physiotherapists, special needs teachers, occupational therapists, nurses and junior doctors. The transfer of knowledge benefited the children, the specialists and the Romanian carers. The trust set up models of good practice and then continued to support the children by establishing houses for disabled teenagers and teaching basic skills to allow them to be more independent.
When she retired, she devoted much time to Romania and many other charities. In India she travelled the Lifeline Express, the world’s first hospital train, and in Ecuador she evaluated proposals for premature baby units. She was also a trustee of the Parthenon Trust, and on their behalf she travelled the world to visit the projects they were supporting.
In 2010, her extensive charity work was recognised with the award of an OBE. In 2012, she was a runner up for The Times’ Sternberg Active Life Award, which honours the achievements of people aged over 70.
She loved travelling, both for her charity work and on holidays. It was said that she would never go to an airport without bumping into someone she knew. She had been about to go to Romania the day she first became unwell in November 2019.
Simon Williams
[This obituary originally appeared in the Royal College of Physicians’ In tribute: Remembering RCP members and fellows who died from COVID-19 in 2020]