Professor Fred Torgbor Sai, Ghana’s renowned physician in reproductive health and a lifelong advocate for women’s sexual and reproductive rights is dead.
Prof. Sai who is best known for his able chairmanship of the main committee of the 1994 conference on population and development died at age 95.
The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana who confirmed his death in a tweeted message, said: “We are saddened by the passing on of our #SRHR champion, Prof Fred Sai. He was a co-founder of @PPAGGhana, Grand Father of @familyplanning & the Chairman for the ICPD1994 confab in Egypt, which is 25years old this year. The world, Africa & Ghana has lost a gem. @Atayeshe #RIPFSai”
Prof Sai co-founded the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana in 1967.
The 2006 recipient of one Ghana’s highest awards, Order of the Star of Ghana, served as Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Ghana Medical School.
He was a gender and reproductive health advocate, known for his campaigns and education drawing attention to the food and nutrition problems of Africa, particularly of women and children.
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 served as the Chief Physician for Nutrition and the Director of Medical Services at the Ghana Health Service and Professor of Community Health at the University of Ghana.
He was also a nutrition advisor to the Food and Agriculture Organization,
Africa Region as well as the coordinator for the World Hunger Program of the United Nations University and a Senior Population Advisor to the World Bank. He was the President and Honorary Secretary of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In professional circles, he was known as “The Godfather or Father of Family Planning” and sometimes as the “Grandfather of Maternal Health”.
He was the father of former minister under the Kufuor administration, Florence Oboshie Sai-Coffie.
