Eldryd Parry Obituary, Death – Founder of Tropical Health and Education Trust Sir Eldryd Parry has passed away. Sir Eldryd’s long, generous, and illustrious life left a lasting impression on the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) and the Health Partnerships community, on those of us who knew him, and on thousands of others all over the world. Sir Eldryd received his medical training at the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff before being assigned to University College Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, from 1960 to 1963. After departing in 1969 to accept the Chair of Medicine at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, he returned to Africa in January 1966 to work at Haile Selassie I University in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia.
He was appointed the University of Ilorin’s Foundation Dean of Medicine in 1977, when he pioneered the revolutionary Community Based Experience and Service program (COBES). He held such positions from 1980 to 1985 at what is now Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Sir Eldryd established THET in 1988, serving as its chairman until 2007. THET experienced a period of slow growth during the 1990s. At this time, THET was beginning to support regional communities and African Ministries of Health by using the Health Partnerships concept. Sir Eldryd quickly realized that the patients in rural areas required care close to their homes.
What began as regional initiatives to assist patients in remote areas expanded to include presences in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Somaliland, and Myanmar, in addition to other individualized programs that went even further afield. Sir Eldryd and his influential work in Africa continue to inspire THET more than 30 years later. THET is guided by the ideas that project work should be responsive rather than prescriptive and that good work will happen if there is mutual trust and a willingness on both sides to learn from one another.
The groundbreaking Principles of Medicine in Africa, a textbook written for medical practice in African nations and circumstances, was founded by Sir Eldryd in 1977. The fifth edition will be released in 2023, thus it is still available in print. He was a foundation member of the faculty of medicine and surgery at Amoud University in Somaliland, a fellow of the West African College of Physicians, and an honorary fellow at Cardiff University, Emmanuel College Cambridge, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene honored him with a lifetime achievement award in 2007. In 1982, he was awarded the OBE, and in 2011, he was named KCMG. Helen, his wife, three daughters, a son, and five grandchildren remain to bury Sir Eldryd. He passed away quietly at a London hospital.
