Message from Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland

Director-General WHO

Dear family and friends of Maryan, dear colleagues. We are all assembled with a sense of great loss deep sorrow and disbelief. On Monday, in this building that Maryan knew so well, he was to be our key anchor of operations at this year’s World Health Assembly. His experience, his depth of understanding and grasp of issues all coming to the fore It was not to be. In his typical style of duty he had been working with us on a number of key issues during his sick leave. Last week he had to go back to hospital. The apparently routine operation for Maryan to get a new knee had been followed by complications and then on Tuesday we were told that things had taken a much more serious turn for the worse. I arrived that night at the hospital still with the hope that things would turn out right as they were operating to remove the new knee. There at the hospital, an hour before midnight, the doctors gave us the tragic news that he had died in the operating theatre. It is such a shock. Maryan was so well, so bright, so alert, in the days prior to the operation. He was so looking forward to getting back full use of his knee and to be fully fit in good time ahead of the World Health Assembly.

As we heard from the Secretary-General, Maryan was an outstanding international civil servant with over 35 years of service. His work lives on in many of the things that we all rely on to keep the UN system running. The salary that goes into the account each month, the pension system, the security measures for staff worldwide, they all have Maryan’s administrative and negotiating skills somewhere inside them He had been with us for two years at WHO and was now part of us. Maryan brought to WHO wide experience from so many other areas of the UN that are represented here with us today. I le had the quickest and sharpest of intellects. We could all see and experience that. He was totally dedicated, working long hours, always prepared to take off his jacket and do the practical work himself whenever necessary. He was always there to tackle any problem – big or small – with clear, simple and sensitive advice. No challenge was too big or too daunting. He was also a tough administrator when he had to be and that requires great strength of character. No one intimidated Maryan. Sometimes he seemed totally intuitive, able to tune into the concerns of many different groups to find solutions to seemingly impossible problems. I admired him not only for that, he was also warm and humorous and had a great sense of fun and love and life. That, above all, put together was what made such a great personality, one we will always remember. Maryan will be a great loss to all of us, to the international world, to his colleagues and friends throughout the United Nations family, to all of us personally. Our thoughts, first of all, are of him and his family and the memories all of us will cherish.