NEW STATION FOR LEPERS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25895, 30 August 1949, Page 3

NEW STATION FOR LEPERS

FORMER CHRISTCHURCH MAN’S WORK

SALVAGE OF HOSPITAL ON GUADALCANAL A description of his work in inaugurating the Government Leper Station for Solomon Islanders at Tetere, on Guadalcanal, was given in an interview yesterday by Mr G. F. Witty, supervisor of the station. Mr Witty, the youngest son of the late Mr George Witty, M.L.C., of JUccarton, has been visiting Christchurch lor a few weeks after a business trip to Sydney. He will take back to Guadalcanal his 17-year-old daughter, Miss Natalie Witty, who has just left the Christchurch Girls’ High School. Mrs Witty remained at Tetere to look after the station. Mr Witty commenced work on the station two years ago. He salvaged nearly all of the building materials required from an abandoned American hospital about 10 miles from Tetere. All these materials had to be towed by barge along the coast, the Americanbuilt roads on the island being now dilapidated. Helped for a while by his son, Mr Murray Witty, and by native labour, he built a large workshop, four stores, five labour huts and his own residence, near the sea. Two miles away he erected the buildings of the leper station proper, consisting of a house for the two nursing sisters, four six-man huts for patients, a kitchen, sanitary block and store. The main extensions to the station in the near future will consist of a small hospital and more patients’ huts. The first three patients arrived two months ago, and there are now 18 on the station. “Although the life is isolated. I can count the white people on Guadalcanal, outside the capital, on the fingers of my hands—it is a satisfying one and has its compensations,” said Mr Witty. “The soil produces excellent crops of vegetables, as well as coconuts and other tropical fruits. The climate is warm but drv near the coast, which is in the path of the trade wind.” The station is the first Government station in the Solomon Islands. It is financed by the British Government under the Colonial Welfare and Development Fund, and assisted by donations from the New Zealand Leper Trust Board, which had provided very generous assistance in the trying times when the station was being built, said Mr Witty.