As a nun, nurse, and manager, she never stayed behind a desk for long. She cared for patients and, as a nurse, was never afraid to occasionally pick up the scalpel herself, while also mentoring students at nursing schools. Over the years, Sister Annunciata proved above all to be indispensable for SolidarMed and Swiss doctors: she was a guardian angel, a refuge, and a cultural “bridge-builder.”

“I was young, full of energy and eager to get things done,” says the now 90-year-old. At the beginning, she couldn't even communicate with her patients in the same language. Sister Annunciata is not a native Basotho. She comes from a small mining town in South Africa. Perhaps it was her own foreignness in Lesotho that allowed her to play a key role as a mediator for the Swiss SolidarMed doctors.

Lesotho's landscape is vast, rugged and steep. Patients often lived several days' journey away from the nearest health centre. “Horses were the most effective and widespread means of transport in Lesotho,” says Sister Annunciata. Sometimes illness and injury prompted people to make the arduous journey to MaMohau: on horseback or in a horse-drawn cart.

“We had our problems at MaMohau Hospital, but these were nothing compared to our passion and desire to help the Basotho,” says Sister Annunciata, adding: “Many people entrusted their lives to us, and we tried to live up to that responsibility.”

In the 1960s, Mary Annunciata took on the role of head nurse at the rapidly growing Paray Hospital in Thaba-Tseka. Cut off from the main transport routes, Paray Hospital consisted for a long time of nothing more than a few buildings. “It was difficult, sometimes even impossible, to obtain medical supplies.”

Sister Annunciata was appointed principal and head teacher of the newly constructed nursing school at Paray Hospital in 1977. With the hospital and the school, she had to juggle two different jobs. She worked in healthcare in Lesotho for over 40 years. In her final years of professional life, she held a position of great responsibility as a manager in a healthcare system that was suffering from the pressure of the HIV pandemic, a lack of staff and financial resources, and the complexity of coordinating between private and public service providers.

Sister Annunciata never worked directly for SolidarMed. Nevertheless, she benefited from the presence and collaboration with the Swiss doctors. “My time with them is full of good memories and lessons,” she says. She adds: “The work of SolidarMed is unmatched and deserves praise, as some of us are where we are today because they have always supported us. I am proud to have been part of the development of the health sector in this country.”