GRANTS FOR LEPER WORK

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 13335, 23 December 1943, Page 2

GRANTS FOR LEPER WORK

DECISION OF TRUST BOARD At a meeting of the Lepers’ Trust Board held last week a grant of £6,000 was made to the Government controlled leper station at Makogai where there are 645 patients of whom 100 are from New Zealand’s own dependencies. Of this amount £3,000 is to be devoted to the discharged lepers’ rehabilitation scheme. As no central leper hospitals exist either in the British South Solomons or the New Hebrides, the board made grants of £SOO to each of the following religious bodies doing medical and leper work in either of these areas: Melanesian Mission (Church of England), Presbyterian Mission, Methodist Mission, Seventh Day Adventist Mission, and Marist Mission (Roman Catholic). Last year a grant of £250 to provide Christmas comforts for the lepers under their care was made to the same religious bodies working in the British Solomons. This year’s grants outside of Makogai are earmarked to provide and equip dispensaries for the treatment of patients, and no money is to be used for religious purposes. The board which is undenominational is gradually extending its work in the South Pacific and for

the first time the 422 patients in New Caledonia, who include 60 Europeans, will receive “a goodwill present” from New . Zealand at Christmas time. The British Consul has undertaken the distribution of these gifts.

The total amount of money so far allocated this year is £10,500 which constitutes a record for the Trust. Dr. T. Fletcher Telford, J.P., M.D., Medical Officer of Health, Christchurch, is chairman of the board.