My mother, Pamela Zinkin, who has died aged 94, was a consultant paediatrician credited with saving the lives of children all over the world. She was also a lifelong campaigner for the NHS.
In 1977, by then a single parent with two young sons, Pam moved to newly independent Mozambique to work as a senior paediatrician, then head of paediatrics, at Maputo central hospital. The country’s healthcare was in a precarious state, with 80% of its doctors having left after independence in 1975. Within five years, Pam and her team had reduced mortality among the 8,000 annual child admissions from 25% to 4%.
Pam’s expertise in child development, disability and war was later sought by the WHO, Unicef, British Council and Save the Children Fund, and she travelled all over the world to help set up and evaluate projects. She was also a trustee or adviser to many charities, notably Medical Aid for Palestinians, Ideals and Oxfam.
Born in London, Pam was the daughter of Mary (nee McMeekin), a typist, and Peter Zinkin, a fur cutter who later became a journalist. Following her parents’ divorce, Pam was raised by her mother and stepfather, George Ives, a postman. At the outbreak of the second world war she was evacuated to Garnant, a mining village in south Wales.
Back in London, Pam went to Addey and Stanhope school in New Cross, before being admitted to Leeds University medical school in 1951. Following her graduation in 1956 she worked at Great Ormond Street, Queen Charlotte’s and Guy’s hospitals, before becoming a senior lecturer in child health at the Institute of Child Health, University of London, with consultant status at Great Ormond Street.
During this time she was also involved with the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid movements, and then with supporting the independence struggle in Mozambique, while also raising her sons – me, from a relationship with André Pen that ended before I was born, and Colin, whom she adopted as a single parent.
She took us both to Mozambique, where Pam became a cooperante – these were experts from across the world who helped the Mozambican government fill the skills gap and train Mozambicans. In Maputo, she reorganised the medical and nursing teams and helped train a new generation of doctors. Many of her former students are now in senior positions in Mozambique.
Back in the UK from 1982, she worked as a consultant paediatrician at Whittington hospital, north London, before returning to her role at the Institute of Child Health and setting up courses in community-based rehabilitation for disabled people and the care of children in war and disaster.
Pam never truly retired. As well as her consultancy work for NGOs and charities, she lobbied for the NHS.
She had friends of all ages, swam at Hampstead Heath, took piano and mandarin lessons into her 90s, and danced with the Company of Elders at Sadler’s Wells.
Pam is survived by Colin and me, and her granddaughter, Emma.
