Accident victim was path-breaking Ottawa doctor
Carling Avenue crash claimed Indian-born Naeema Matuk, 85, who authored unique life
Local newspapers and TV stations published accounts of a single vehicle crash on Carling Avenue earlier this summer that left the driver in critical condition.
That unnamed woman was Dr. Naeema Berlas Matuk. The 85-year-old died in hospital at the end of July after two weeks in intensive care.
Indian-born, Matuk was a pioneering medical doctor in Ottawa, a mother, a gardener, a painter — and the author of an epic personal story.
“She was an independent soul, no one could tame her,” said her longtime friend, Dr. Shajia Khan, a retired specialist in internal medicine. “What I admired about her was that she lived life on her terms. She was very independent, very determined.”
Matuk was born on May 11, 1935 in Meerut, India, near New Delhi, as the independence movement in that country gathered force. Her father was a barrister, educated at Oxford University; her mother was descended from Afghan nobles.
As a young girl, Matuk nursed her mother who suffered from seizures. She died when Matuk was eight or nine years old.
“She developed this incredible empathy for people at a young age,” said Matuk’s son, Robert. “She was always concerned about how you were doing.”
Naeema’s family was Muslim. In August 1947, when British-controlled India was split into two independent nations — a mostly-Hindu India and a predominantly-Muslim Pakistan — some 12 million people became refugees overnight. As many as one million people died in the violence that accompanied partition.
Nyla Matuk, a Toronto-based poet and writer, said her mother was forced to hide in the hills outside Meerut during the height of the violence.
Naeema attended university and medical school in Karachi, Pakistan. The only woman in her graduating class, she secured a medical residency with a renowned physician and family planning advocate, Dr. Jessie Brodie, of Portland, Ore., who happened to be visiting Karachi at the time.
Matuk moved to the United States, and later took a residency position in Edmonton where, in the basement of a makeshift mosque, she met a Palestinian-Canadian who worked as a chemist. The couple married in 1962 and moved to Winnipeg, then London, Ont., before settling in Ottawa.
Dr. Matuk was one of the first women of colour to practice medicine in this city. Her family clinic at 180 Metcalfe Street grew quickly: Many of her patients came from Ottawa’s Muslim and diplomatic communities.
In the mid-1970s, Matuk met Dr. Khan, another Indian-born physician who was training as an internal medicine specialist at The Ottawa Hospital. “There were very few women physicians so we all knew each other,” said Dr. Khan. “There was quite a good camaraderie among all the female physicians. We supported each other.”
Both fluent in Urdu, Matuk and Khan became close friends. They often shared celebrations.
“She was very effusive and outgoing,” said Khan. “She loved people, politics, music, art, travel.”
Robert Matuk, born in 1972, was often dragged along to his mother’s house calls and to her early morning hospital rounds. Dr. Matuk became a palliative care specialist, and Robert often went to those calls, too.
“I’ve been to every nursing home in Ottawa five times over,” he said. “She helped so many people.”
Nyla Matuk said her mother didn’t dwell on whatever sexism or discrimination she suffered, but simply went about her work and her life. “She taught me how to be independent,” she said, “because she was just so independent and so gutsy, really gutsy.”
In retirement, Dr. Matuk refused to move into a retirement home since she didn’t want to give up her Rothwell Heights home or her beloved garden. In February, she had knee surgery and completed her physiotherapy alone at home in the pandemic.
Late on the morning of July 13, Matuk drove to the west end to do some shopping and to deliver roses from her garden to her friend, Dr. Khan. It was one of her first excursions since the surgery. While driving back home, she lost control of her car in a construction zone and slammed into a house near Woodroffe Avenue.
Her family and friends are still trying to understand what happened, but she likely confused the brake and accelerator. “It was very poignant,” said Dr. Khan. “She was so kind and generous. It was her whole approach to life.”