The title for today was the meat of the apt sermon delivered last Saturday at the funeral of Assistant Commissioner of Police Dr John Alexander Taylor at the parade grounds of the Police Academy at Tesano in Accra by the Very Reverend Joshua Orgen, the Superintendent Minister of the Dzorwulu Circuit of the Methodist Church of Ghana.
I was present, with hundreds of others, to bid farewell to Dr Taylor of the Police Hospital, who had died unexpectedly in early December last year.
I am devoting today to an appreciation of this friend and brother of mine who was very widely known by all who visited the Police Hospital, and far beyond that, as I will show presently. Dr Taylor was the most devoted ‘’epistler’’ I knew, always the first to call me early every Friday morning to either lambaste me for my views, chew the cud over other news in town or check on the health of everyone in my family. He was my personal medical advisor and confidante. Above all, Dr Taylor took pride in our friendship because he was an Abura man himself, 100 per cent , and he loved that at least once a week he would read from his hometowner, in the leading newspaper in the country, even if he disagreed with me, which he did, often.
A doctor’s doctor
I have known this doctors’ doctor since 1976, when he came to the 6th form in my school in Cape Coast from a successful stint in Winneba Secondary School. In 1976, I had been resident in Winneba since 1974, courtesy my father who had moved there as the chairman, now Bishop of the diocese of the Winneba District of the Methodist Church. Because we were in different schools, I was not aware of his presence in the town till he joined my school two years later. Further, it was then I learnt the man who passed by every morning and evening on his way to and from work at the Winneba Education Office was his stepfather who never failed to chat up my father as he passed by.
As fate would have it, from secondary school, we met again in Akuafo Hall at the University of Ghana, whence I joined him eventually in the M block of the hall. He was studying to be a doctor so though he was a year ahead of me, he qualified in 1986, whilst I left Legon in 1982 with a degree in the Humanities.
He had been a doctor at the Police Hospital since 1990 and passed away at the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police in December 2014, making him the longest serving staffer at the hospital at the time of his passage. The entire hierarchy of the Ghana Police Service was present to give a fitting farewell to their colleague.
Now to the meaning of what his pastor, Very Reverend Orgen, said at the service. My readers will recall I have condemned those whose quest for the good life for themselves and their families, immediate and extended, is their only reason for existence. Beyond this narrow materialistic quest and what should facilitate it, nothing interests such people, and apart from their display of affluence and lack of firm opinions on things that matter and will outlive their crass materialism, they are not really interesting or remarkable people.
Not so with the late Dr Taylor. He was a very valuable human being whose life affected very many in several positive ways, some of which I was quite unaware of, increasing my respect for this outspoken medical officer who did not waver or falter in the propagation of the truth in all situations of concern. Let me instantiate.
Pro bono work
How many doctors, religious or not, spend their leave doing pro bono work in outlandish places in this country instead of working frantically at their own clinics to fatten their bank balances? Dr Taylor normally spent his leave working and healing the sick at Wenchi Methodist Hospital in the Brong Ahafo Region, without charge.
Indeed, when I informed my youngest brother, the Very Reverend Dr Casely Essamuah, by email of his passage, he called me at once to confirm if it was the family friend Dr Taylor I meant. This was because he was the last person my brother had visited at the Police Hospital on the day he returned to his post in the United States after participating in the Methodist Conference last year in Kumasi. His sadness was palpable; he was arranging at Dr Taylor’s suggestion, to raise funds in the United States to establish clinics in the Central Region for the Methodist Church so that those down here could also benefit from his medical knowledge and assistance.
He had been the moving spirit behind the setting up of the clinic in his church at Dzorwulu, and the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) clinic here in Accra. This is a man who lived and practiced his faith. I didn’t even know he was the sitting board chairperson of the Saint Mary’s Senior High School (SHS) at Korle Gonno here in Accra. Of course, he was a founder member of the Men’s Fellowship in his church and remained a staunch member till his demise. His attendance at meetings was always punctuated by emergency medical calls of church members and others.
ACP Dr Taylor was very unassuming, yet very outspoken like a true and fearless Abura man, friend to many and foe to none. His sudden, unexpected death has robbed a much derided-profession in this country of one of its true gems, caring, generous with his time and knowledge and true professional who lived for the profession and not its rewards. It is strange that a doctor can die and we are all bewildered because they seem to those who are unbelievers, the sustainer of our frail lives. How can a person so full of life, always laughing or smiling, just leave us so?
The life of this fine Christian gentleman and consummate professional should compel all to ask of themselves; will others, unrelated to me in any way, feel my absence when I am no more? Am I a valuable member of the human race whose life gives meaning to others and whose absence is genuinely mourned and regretted? Or am I just supercargo in the ship of life? A proud stalwart of the Abura State has left us without notice and I am inconsolably bereaved. ACP Dr Taylor, rest in perfect peace.
