Tribute to Emmanuel Augustus Badoe
“Don’t play games with me. I travelled all the way here to see Dr Badoe and you bring me to see this boy?” So furious was the hapless farmer who had travelled from Fante hinterland to Cape Coast to seek treatment for hernia.
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He had heard through snippets here and there that there was a Dr Badoe who had been transferred from Tamale to the Cape Coast Government Hospital; and who could help him. Who would blame this farmer when seated across him was a boyish looking person? Boyish not only in looks but also in stature. Even when “the boy” assured him he was Dr Badoe, the man was skeptical until consultations and examinations began. Needless to say, within a week, his hernia had been operated upon easily and successfully.
News about “a young Nzema kid” who was performing wonders at the Cape Coast General Hospital spread rapidly. And for good reason.
From Cape Coast, he was transferred to Sekondi-Takoradi, affording him the opportunity to be of great service to his paternal relatives. Dr Badoe was then posted to Kumasi and later to Korle Bu Hospital in 1961, which became one of its permanent fixtures until his death on October 17, 2015.
Family background and education
Emmanuel Augustus Badoe was born on Saturday, February 17, 1923 at Asante Asokore to Maame Adwoa Saponma of Asante Asokore and Daniel Augustus Ebule Badoe, Esq of the famous Badoe Timber Merchants family of Beyin in Western Nzema.
Kwame Buadi was his father’s second child and second son. He bore the names of three of the illustrious sons of the Badoe family, Buadi being his greatgrandfather and the Badoe doyen; Emmanuel, being his eldest uncle; and Augustus, his father.
When young Emmanuel got to school age, his father considered giving him a head start in education and therefore took him to live with his aunt Maame Mangela in Axim. Maame Mangela, who became young Emmanuel’s ‘mother’, supervised his primary education at Axim Methodist Primary School from 1929 to 1937.
He was remarkably brilliant as a student and passed the “awesome Hall” with distinction. He also passed his examinations to the famous Mfantsipim School and the newly founded Achimota School. With the help of his father, he opted for Achimota as it had offered him a full Cadbury Scholarship. Suffice it to say, he continued to shine and he was noted by his teachers and his peers as he won so many form prizes up to when he ‘graduated’ with a school leaving certificate in 1941 with exemption from London Matriculation.
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He then took the inter-BSc course and passed in 1944. With that qualification, he took up an appointment at Mfantsipim School where he taught Science and Mathematics.
Admission with full scholarship beckoned from Sheffield University, truncating his Mfantsipim teaching appointment. He went through the five-year medical course with ease and passed his final MB ChB in the same year.
As was the norm then, Emmanuel Badoe should have returned to the Gold Coast to work for some time before returning for his post-graduate studies but his professors and the university were so impressed with him that they offered him an admission to stay on to undertake a post-graduate course of study in surgery, this time without scholarship.
Family support
Sharing in his dream of becoming a surgeon and determined that nothing would hinder his progress, his father rallied his household and sent victuals and everything he needed from the Effiduase Post Office across the sea right to the doors of his hostel in faraway Britain. For his siblings and their mother, Mrs Comfort Badoe, doing this was a labour of love. Emmanuel Badoe reciprocated this love throughout his life here on earth, becoming an extraordinary gift to his rather big family.
Return home
Keenly aware of the dearth of medical doctors back home in the then Gold Coast, the new surgeon, Dr Badoe, wasted no time in Britain after attainment of the coveted FRCS in 1953 and immediately set sail for home. On the boat with him were his wife, Mercy Fadoa Badoe, nee Kwaw; and their first child, Kwame Ebule Badoe.
Professor “Ahobrase” Badoe was the second surgeon to return home to the then Gold Coast after his training. The first being Professor Easmon who had returned to the Gold Coast with his FRCS in 1948 and had taken the country by storm. By his stature, nature and character, Badoe was so different from Professor Easmon. Yet, the two were bound in their quest to do their utmost best for the advancement of health care in their motherland.
According to Professor Easmon, what impressed him immensely about Badoe was that he was not self-opinionated and got on very well with his seniors, peers and juniors alike across the medical world. Badoe did not seek a theatre of his own but worked with Professor Easmon in the same theatre, assisting the senior doctor tremendously. Little wonder that Professor Easmon was not happy when Badoe was transferred to the region.
In 1962, while studying for further post-graduate work in surgery abroad on a Smith and Nephew Fellowship scholarship, Badoe was appointed a member of a committee to deliberate on the commencement of a medical school in Ghana. Badoe, along with Easmon and Alex Kwapong, was later dispatched to Nigeria on the orders of President Kwame Nkrumah. Their mandate was to have discussions with the authorities in Ibadan and Lagos to map out a plan for establishing a medical school in Ghana. The universities of Ibadan and Lagos were very cooperative and eagerly agreed to assist Ghana to establish its own medical school attached to its premier university.
Eventually, with the full cooperation and participation of many doctors in the country, the Ghana Medical School got underway in October 1964. Easmon, Silas Dodu, Kwashie Quartey and Badoe, as well as Engmann, Evans Anfom, Frankie Grant and so many others, stood tall as having enabled Osagyefo’s dream of a Ghana Medical School to become a reality.
In later years, Badoe suggested to Professor Easmon that in order to train more medical doctors at the post-graduate level, a Post-Graduate Programme for Specialists should be established in-country. Professor Easmon thus appointed Badoe as chairman of the committee to organise and supervise what became a fully fledged programme that trained specialists in Surgery, Obstetrics, Gynecology, Medicine and Child Health.
To support health care delivery in Ghana, many were the books and papers he penned. Many were the clinical researches he undertook; prominent among which was the research that led to the formulation of a gastro intestinal replacement fluid subsequently named “Badoe Maintenance Solution” which simplified fluid therapy for medical and nursing staff.
Emmanuel Augustus Buadi Badoe were his names. Names of three illustrious sons of the Badoes of Beyin, Ekpu and Half Assini. Each name individually and collectively shaping a life that was exceptional. A life that was so dedicated to his paternal and maternal families that in his lifetime it was difficult to differentiate between his maternal and paternal relatives.
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“Curae Loquuntur Ingentes Stupent” (Literally: slight griefs talk, great ones are speechless, minor losses can be talked away; profound ones strikes us dumb) – Dr Kwaku Afriyie