Walter Wilson Nana
Buea, Cameroon
Dr. Lawrence Francis Tonye Biaka, one of the finest Cameroonian Gynaecologists is dead. The well-trained Gynaecologist/Obstetrician and founder of the St. Veronica Medical Centre, Buea, died Wednesday, April 3 2014 in Buea after battling with stroke for ten years.
After completing Standard 6 in Kumba, the young Biaka moved on to St. Joseph College, Sasse, Buea in 1951. Done with his secondary education in Sasse, Biaka travelled to Nigeria, where he had admission into the Nigeria College of Arts & Techniques where he settled for
Dr Lawrence Francis Biaka
Pharmacology in the campus located in Ibadan. He will distinguish himself in Nigeria and got a scholarship to pursue his studies in India, where he read Medicine at the India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. While in Delhi, he came out the second best foreign student, which opened the way for another scholarship to go study in Yugoslavia and subsequently to England. Finished with his studies, he will grab his first job as a medic in the Heart Field General Hospital, near London. He worked in England for a decade before coming back to Cameroon to join the government service.
Back home, he was posted to the Bamenda General Hospital. After six months, he was redeployed to Limbe and having spent six years in Limbe, he was transferred to Bertoua, East Region of Cameroon. Dr Biaka will not take up the Bertoua appointment and decided to put in his resignation from the government service to go private.
Now solo, he will begin a Medical Cabinet at his home and as he got more patients coming, he bought some land in 1982, at the Bokoko neighbourhood of Buea, where he started the construction of a clinic and a medical centre known as St. Veronica Medical Centre. This medical centre is named after his mother, Veronica, Dr Biaka indicated in an interview with The Sower Magazine.
Today, the centre has the St. Veronica Polyclinic, St. Francis School of Nursing and Midwifery (accredited by the Ministry of Public Health), St. Francis Higher Institute of Nursing and Midwifery (accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education) and St. Francis School of Health Sciences (accredited by the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training). It is also the first institution in Cameroon to train geriatric nurses and the first in English-speaking Cameroon to train medical secretaries and medical sales representatives.
Besides a committed medic that he was, late Dr. Biaka was also into transport business and horticulture. He sold his flowers as far as Latvia in Eastern Europe.
However, a close aide of his, for eleven years, Otto Singeh noted that his boss was a strict man who put finesse in all his operations. He will add that Dr Biaka’s motivation to open a private clinic was hinged on the fact that civil service action was too slow for his liking. “He loved getting into action,” Singeh mentioned.
Mrs Francisca Biaka (L), Administrator & her late husband, Dr Biaka, Proprietor, St. Veronica Medical Centre, Buea
A lover of golf and going on to cruise in the sea with his boat, the deceased was also a devout Catholic Christian and worshipped at the St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Buea.
Though he began suffering from stroke in 2004, Dr. Biaka will not give up what he knew how to do best, consulting as a Gynaecologist until the close of 2013, when he stopped.
A fine Gynaecologist, Dr. Biaka was also a handsome man, full of life, spectacular and enjoyed it to the best of his ability. His wife, Francisca Hongla Biaka, with whom they have been together for twenty years, though they got married in 1992 recalls; “He loved his job but his poor health did not allow him move on as he would have loved. He always took care of his patients, loved to do things right, especially in the medical field.”
Blessed with four children; a girl and three boys in his marriage with Francisca, Dr. Lawrence Francis Biaka has six biological children; three girls and three boys.
In his collection of awards, the deceased was knighted with the Cameroon Order of Valour in 2002 and in 2008 he received Gold, Silver-Guild and Silver Labour Medals from the people and government of Cameroon.
According to family sources, a tentative funeral and burial programmes have been slated for May 2014.
