Erika Sutter

Erika Sutter

Erika Sutter (1917-2015) was a Swiss ophthalmologist and a medical missionary in South Africa. She became a lecturer at the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) and at the Swiss Tropical Institute. Motivated by her faith, she joined the Swiss Mission in South Africa and worked at the Elim Hospital. During this time, she made a significant impact on the local community and the medical community by dealing with malnutrition and controlling trachoma. Furthermore, she preached and practiced community mobilization and preventative healthcare through establishing a Care Group system and wrote academic papers and books about her work. She was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Basel for her work and was also named Woman of the Year in 1984.

Early life

Sutter was born in Basel, Switzerland on June 14, 1917, youngest of four siblings, to Ernst Theodor Sutter and Meta (née Ris). Her family had a second home in Troistorrents. She was homeschooled until third grade. From fourth grade, she was enrolled in Basel girls' high schoool Gymnasium am Kohlenberg. In 1937, Sutter enrolled in college at the University of Basel and majored in botany and zoology along with minors in geography and physics. She continued studying after her undergraduate years and completed a doctorate in plant physiology in 1952.. She worked at the Institute of Botany during her student years.

Early career

After considering to become a teacher, she decided to start working at Hoffmann-La Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical firm, in the animal physiology department. In 1948, she was offered an opportunity through a friend to work in the botany department at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Ultana, and she left Basel that year to work there for two years.

Missionary career

Dr. Erika Sutter first heard about the Swiss Mission in South Africa through her friend Marie-Louise Martin, who worked as a chaplain at a high school in Basel. She contacted the missionaries there to find out about the mission's work, however her plans were halted after the sudden deaths of her father and sister, Trudi, in 1945. After continuing work at Roche, her interest in working for the Swiss Mission was reignited during her time in Sweden. Her insightful encounters with missionaries there compelled her to pursue missionary work, and she left for South Africa in mid-April 1952.

Motivations

Although she had grown up a devout Christian, Sutter did not see her commitment to missionary service as a religious calling, nor a means to fulfill her personal ambition. She explains in her biography that it was “simply her path”.

Achievements

From 1952 to 1984, Dr. Sutter worked at the Elim Hospital as a member of the staff and as an ophthalmologist for around twenty years. During that time, she was responsible for eye services and training of ophthalmic nurses in the hospital. She worked mostly in the Northern Transvaal regions and was involved extensively in preventive health care in the community through the Care Groups. To train to be an ophthalmologist, she went back to Switzerland to study ophthalmology and practice surgical procedures in the Basel Eye Hospital. She returned to the Elim Hospital in 1965 as a fully certified ophthalmologist. As the only doctor in the eye department, she worked tirelessly treating trachoma and various other eye diseases. However, as the eye hospital expanded and more doctors assisted in eye treatments, Sutter was able to direct her focus on achieving other visions.

Sutter had always wanted to start a nursing school for eye care since she started working in South Africa and in 1975, her dream was fulfilled when the South African Nursing Council officially recognized their new curriculum and granted approval of the school. At the school, African nurses could be trained and receive an official diploma in ophthalmic nursing. That same year, she also established the Rivoni Society for the Blind, a rehabilitation center that offered workshops and training for the visually impaired and the blind. The society also offered a school for blind children where they could read Braille and learn how to use a typewriter.

Care Groups

In an effort to reduce cases of trachoma, a very easily curable eye disease with good hygienic practices, Dr. Sutter helped organize Care Groups with Selina Maphorogo, her translator and main motivator of the Care Groups. Care Groups aimed to mobilize local people, mostly women, to spread awareness about trachoma and the ways in which to prevent it to local communities. As a result of their efforts, the number of active trachoma cases was reduced by 50% within three years of launching the project. The Care Groups have also helped spread awareness and address a wide range of problems such as HIV/AIDS and malnutrition in the region. The project has since quickly multiplied; around 2002, there were around 10,000 women working in 300 villages.

Works and legacy

One of Erika Sutter’s most significant publications is Hanyane, a Village Struggles for Eye Health, an educational book which has been translated into many languages. The book goes into detail about effective preventive care and village development and documents useful medical notes for ophthalmologists. She also wrote The Community is my University, a compilation of interviews of her and Selina Maphorogo. This book mainly focused on the Care Groups and development aid.

Erika was named the Woman of the Year in 1984. She also received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Basel for her work and accomplishments in South Africa in 1995. One year later, she was awarded the Trachoma Gold Medal by the French Ligue Internationale Contre le Trachome. In 2005, she received an honor by the Ophthalmological Society of South Africa.(3) Mamphela Ramphele, a South African politician and an activist against apartheid, praised Erika as a “fellow global citizen, [who] not only opened the physical eyes of those she encountered but also their spiritual eyes, to appreciate the power they had within them.”

Retirement

Erika retired in 1984, when she was 67 years old, and returned to Basel, Switzerland. In her retirement, Erika spent most of her time traveling and giving presentations and teaching at the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel and at the International Centre for Eye Health in England. Erika died in 2015 at the age of 98.