Professor Fred Torgbor Sai, one of Ghana’s renowned Physicians in Reproductive Health and a supporter of women’s rights has died at 95.
The 2006 receipient of one Ghana’s highest awards, Order of the Star of Ghana is the father of former minister under the Kufuor administration, Florence Oboshie Sai-Coffie.
Based on Sai’s advocacy, in 2007, the government of John Agyekum Kufuor introduced free maternal health services as an avenue to reduce maternal mortality among adolescent girls and young women.
He has also served as Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Ghana Medical School.
His passion to support more women to read Basic and Applied Sciences at the University became evident after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), Cairo in 1994.
Having won the Prince Mahidol Award in Bangkok in 1995, for International Leadership and Advocacy of Gender Equity, Reproductive Health, Family Planning and Population, he donated $20,000 of his prize money to the University of Ghana towards the establishment of a fund to encourage women to read courses in the under-represented fields of science.
More than fifty students have benefited from this fund.
The Fred T. Sai Institute, an initiative of the IPPF Africa Region, was established in Sai’s honour as a “pioneer public health research institute, championing research on population and sexual reproductive health…to generate evidence on effective health strategies aimed at improving the health of the population in sub-Saharan Africa”
The UNFPA Ghana Office confirmed his death in a facebook post and expressed condolences to the family.
source:myjoyonline