On Sunday March 12, 2023, Professor Enyonam Yao Kwawukume, who together with his wife Dr. Susu Bridget Kwawukume, founded Ghana’s premier private Medical School, Family Health University School of Medicine, Teshie, Accra is seventy (70) years old. A group of family and friends meet to celebrate the event ahead.
This is after his wife and children have objected to his decision not to celebrate his 70th birthday, as men often do to displease women! Like the Prof, I don’t like big birthday parties, if any. However, three-score and ten can be exempted on account of biblical significance among others.
By the end of 2022, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) puts Ghana’s population at 31 million. The average life expectancy is 64.9 years, women average 66.1 years and men 63.8 years. The percentage of Ghanaians between the ages of 15-64 is 59.5%. Those between 65-69 years old are 3.6% of the Ghanaian population. For seventy and more, only 2.73% of the population of Ghana, the endangered species Prof. Kwawukume has joined. This is where I think the seventieth anniversary deserves a special celebration.
So, who is Professor Enyonam Kwawukume?
Prof. Yao Kwawukume
A product of Mawuli School, Ho, Prof. Kwawukume graduated from the University of Ghana School of Medicine in 1979 as a doctor. Together with his wife Dr Susu Kwawukume, Prof is the co-founder and president of Family Health University College (FHUC) which consists of Family Health Medical School, the leading private medical school in Ghana, School of Nursing and Midwifery, and Family Health Hospital. The aim is to help improve the education and health workforce in the sub-region, Africa and beyond. Foreign students come from Nigeria, Cameroon and Egypt.
Prof. Kwawukume headed the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Ghana for nine years. He is an honorary Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 1997, he received the Badoe Teaching Award as the best overall lecturer and was also awarded the “Health Laurette” by the Impact Africa Summit in 2016. Prof. Kwawukume is a past chairman of the West African College of Surgeons, and a past president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Ghana . His major and innovative contributions to the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology include;
“The first surgeon in the world to perform Bloodless Myomectomy during caesarean section using a tourniquet. He also created the WHEEL Medical Eligibility Criteria for Reproductive Health and Family Planning which is now used worldwide after being approved and adopted by the WHO. (Quotation)
Prof. Kwawukume enjoys writing and is the author of two basic books, Comprehensive Obstetrics and Comprehensive Gynecology in the Tropics, and co-author of Reproduction and Comprehensive Family Planning in the Tropics. These books have been described as the first written by Africans for Africans and the world and have contributed to high success rates in exams for postgraduate trainees and medical students who use them.
FHUC Medical School
In 2020, the first group of thirty FHUC medical students will graduate as medical doctors. In 2021, FHUC Medical School successfully produced fifty four new doctors for Ghana. The third medical student will graduate in September 2023.
A Joy FM report dated February 16, 2023 titled “FHMS trained doctors excel at Greater Accra Regional Hospital” stated;
“Alumnus of the School of Family Health Medicine, Dr Elorm Adzei Tuadra recently received the Outstanding Worker award from the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (GARH) for being Team C’s Outstanding House Officer for 2022. Dr Adzei graduated from the School of Family Health Medicine. with first class 2020, after following a six-year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB) program.
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Family Health University College started in a garage at 51 Guggisberg Street, Korle Bu, Korle Gonno in 1997 as a Diagnostic Center called Family Health Group. In 2007, Family Health University College moved to its current permanent location in Teshie, facing the Atlantic Ocean and directly opposite the Kofi Annan International Peace Training Center (KAIPTC).
From its very beginning as a Diagnostic Center in the 1990s, the Family Health University College, the vision of Prof and Dr Susu Kwawukume today, has evolved into a Family Health University College which includes a School of Medicine, a School of Nursing and Midwifery, and a Hospital located in Teshie, Accra .
Despite the lure of easier and perhaps better opportunities elsewhere, Prof. with perseverance and tenacity remained in Ghana with the commitment to contribute to national development through Medicine, despite all the difficulties and frustrations experienced by the pioneers!
Prof. Kwawukume’s innovation has introduced the final year Medical Student curriculum which is “Leadership and Management Training.” This is to give you an idea of what happens in the real world as a fresh doctor, and the relationship with the health workers you will meet, some of whom may be old enough to be parents, before you get there. Among other things, humility, Humaneness and Integrity, which are taught, should be guidelines.
The professor also established a $10,500/year scholarship Scheme for one student each year. The Endowment Fund to take care of bright but needy students will be launched by the end of March 2023.
Prof. Kwawukume’s selfless leadership is evident everywhere. Structures on campus are constantly “work in progress” with renovations.
Prof, on the occasion of your 70th birthday, the Board of Trustees of the Endowment Fund led by Dr Naa Alhassan Andani, former MD of Stanbic Bank, Board Members, Faculty, Staff, employees and students of the University of Family Health say AYEKOO and CONGRATULATIONS. ! May God bless you as you continue to contribute to the Development of Ghana.
My hope is that more Ghanaians will be inspired by Prof. Kwawukume’s patriotism and follow suit. Because, as a foreign general taught me during cadet training abroad in the early 1970s, “your little country Ghana produces more brains per capita than the big countries!” He told us that, he is a Ghanaian in industry, academia and indeed NASA sent man to the moon and back!
So why have we retreated from the Black Star of Africa that shone when we were independent to our present morally deficient state? We need to get rid of greed, arrogance and indiscipline, and re-plan our way back to patriotism, love of country and discipline as we were taught in the early 1960s.
Once again, Happy 70th Birthday, Prof. Enyonam Yao Kwawukume! God bless you for your leadership, selfless service and devotion to God and country!
Leadership, leadership!
Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (RTD)
Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association
Nairobi, Kenya
Chairman of the Board
University of Family Health
Accra
[email protected]
Source: Brig-Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd), Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya
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