The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams will once again be at the centre of Christmas celebrations this year – but he has revealed that without a Wales-based doctor he may not be alive today.
Dr Williams was just two and living in Ystradgynlais in the South Wales valleys when he fell victim to TB meningitis – a rare form of the potentially fatal disease. He was attended by the local GP, a former Polish resistance fighter named Wlodzimierz Boladz, who recognised the signs after treating a young patient who had the same disease during the Second World War, and sent him to hospital.
In a new programme for BBC Radio Wales, The Polish Doctor, Dr Boladz, who celebrates his 102nd birthday this month, recalls the meeting with the boy born to be Archbishop in 1952, and describes how the hospital at first pooh-poohed his diagnosis, saying it wasn’t possible to tell without tests. But Dr Boladz said the look of pain on the face of his small patient was exactly the same as in the previous case he’d seen while working as a GP for the Polish underground – and insisted the young Rowan was treated immediately.
Dr Williams, who is interviewed in the programme, says Dr Boladz had been “ready to listen” to his mother’s concerns. “I think I owe my life to that diagnosis,” he says. “I’d say thank you at some length; I’d love to say thank you for demonstrating what a doctor can be in the community.”
Dr Boladz escaped from war-torn Poland and moved to Wales in the late 1940s, living in Ystradgynlais with his wife and young son, and practising in the community until retiring at the age of 78.
The Polish Doctor, narrated by Bethan Rhys Roberts, tells of Dr Boladz’s early life in Poland, his resistance work – both he and his wife were decorated for their efforts – and his time in a concentration camp during the war. Doctor Boladz’s work as a GP in Ystradgynlais in the late 1940s and 50s throws a fascinating spotlight on the early years of the NHS, the nationalised coal industry and changes in communities since the war.
The Polish Doctor, Sunday, December 11, BBC Radio Wales, 5.30pm
