Comment: Tribute to Prof. Ewurama Addy

I learnt with profound sadness the sudden death of Prof. Marian Ewurama Addy, who without doubt is one of the greatest scientists our country has ever produced.

I first met Prof. Addy at a 4-day workshop which was organized in July 2007, at the Atomic Energy Commission in Accra, Ghana, to harmonise national policies and regulatory framework on Traditional Medicine for the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) sub-region. She was there as the representative of the WHO (World Health Organisation) and AFRO (African Regional Offices).

The workshop was an interactive one which involved group works and plenary presentations, which meant that the learned professor had to work with some delegates she would probably consider her students! The workshop was an immense success and at the end of it, I took with me fond memories of her simplicity, the seriousness with which she attached to the exercise and her friendliness.

We immediately struck up a friendship that lasted till her passing today. When the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) decided to produce the first volume of Herbal Pharmacopoeia for ECOWAS, I was privileged to have her as the first President of the Task Force set up to carry out the exercise at our first meeting held in Ouagadougou in 2008. In the course of time, I got to know Prof. Addy as a deep-thinking person with a profound mastery of her subject and perhaps as a character of contrast-modest but no-nonsense.

Prof. Addy did not suffer fools gladly! She made every effort to attend all the subsequent meetings and always left her mark as a woman endowed with immense leadership qualities. Unfortunately, she could not attend the launch of this landmark document at the 6th WAHO Scientific Congress of Traditional Medicine Practitioners and Conventional Medicine Practitioners held in Ouagadougou in December 2013 due to her failing health.

The mail she sent me to decline her invitation was quite grim. I thanked her for the courage she had shown in breaking the news of her condition to me and promised not to disclose it to anybody and prayed: “May the mighty hand of our Maker prevail at this trying moment of your life”.

The mighty hand of our Maker may have prevailed, but I am sure He probably thought she will be better off resting in peace than to continue to endure excruciating pain and suffering. The demise of Prof. Addy, has cut through me like a knife; it is a terrible blow to the proponents of rational Traditional Medicine practice as she devoted the greater part of her professional life promoting the sector.

A few weeks ago, I extended to all my friends around the globe the season’s greetings, “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” and ended with Einstein’s reflection of the purpose of our existence on this planet, which is: “Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men; in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the ties of sympathy.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving”. As usual, I copied the learned Professor, but she didn’t respond. It immediately dawned on me her condition had probably deteriorated. My fears have now been confirmed.

I have lost a big sister, a friend and a mentor. Prof. Marian Ewurama Addy is one of the distinguished scientists to have emerged from this continent, but I will always remember her for her simplicity, wisdom and frankness.

May her soul rest in peace!

Dr. Kofi Busia

Programme Officer, Traditional Medicine

West African Health Organisation

Bobo Dioulasso-Burkina Faso