Mohammad Matuk

Doctor

MOHAMMAD DAOUD Matuk, who has died at 90, was a GP of the old school, who tended to 2,100 patients in Barnsley without recourse to either a receptionist or appointments book.

Born in Jerusalem in 1928, he had arrived in Britain in

1947 to study medicine at Birmingham University. Upon graduation he worked in various hospitals, and was attracted to one job

– that of registrar in the obstetrics and gynaecology department in St Helen’s – only because his wife, Deni, was expecting their first child and it was one of the few to offer living quarters.

He arrived in Yorkshire in 1957, intending to stay for a year. But he found he liked Barnsley and its people and made them his life’s work. After five years he switched to general practice and ran surgeries in Old Mill Lane and Rotherham Road, which remained much the same as the day he took them on. Unlike modern contemporaries, he had no computer on his desk. He eschewed an appointments system, too, finding that his patients didn’t care for the idea. Although disliking some modern developments, he saw the benefit of medical improvements over the years and the dramatic reduction, with the pit closures, of cases of bronchitis and emphysema. Outside of his practice, he was the factory doctor at Remploy in Barnsley and served as a police surgeon for more than 30 years. He is survived by Deni, his four children, David, Thelma, Belinda and Helen, and two grandchildren.