Sione Tapa (30 October 1923 – 9 May 2018)[1] was a Tongan politician, physician, and philanthropist. He was the first Tongan to graduate with a medical degree.[2] He served as Tonga's Health Minister from 1970 to 1996.
Tapa was born in Nukuʻalofa and educated at Tonga College and the Fiji School of Medicine.[3] After graduating in 1944, he attended Auckland Grammar School[4] and then the University of Otago, graduating in 1953 with an MB ChB.[2] He worked as a medical officer for the Tongan government from 1955 to 1970, when he was appointed Minister of Health, a role he held until 1996.[1] He also served as acting Minister of Finance from September 1970 to May 1971 while Mahe 'Uli'uli Tupouniua was studying overseas,[5] and again from November 1972 to January 1981.[1]
In May 1977 he was elected president of the 30th World Health Assembly,[6] He was later chair of the World Health Organization Regional Committee for the Western Pacific from 1982 to 1983, and a member of the WHO Executive Board from 1989 to 1990.[1] In 1991 he was awarded the WHO Health-for-All Gold Medal.[7]
In 2012 he donated TP$1 million saved from his ministerial salary to establish a scholarship for students who wanted to study health.[1]