LEPER TRUST PROJECT

Press, Issue 29236, 21 June 1960, Page 8

LEPER TRUST PROJECT

_T New Dispensaries For Solomons

Three new dispensaries, to be administered by local native councils, for the treatment of tropical disease, are to be built shortly in some of the most remote areas of the British South Solomons. Funds, for this.work have been provided by New Zealanders through the New Zealand. Lepers’ Trust Board. When the secretary of the board (Mr P. J. Twomey) last visited the Solomons some two years ago, he made two grants of £5OO each to two native councils. The usual practice is for the Government or church mission bodies to organise medical services, but in making substantial grants to native councils, Mr Twomey sought to encourage them to take some steps themselves in providing treatment for sufferers from leprosy and other tropical diseases in their own villages. “Recent reports from the Solomons have proved this experiment to be well worth while,” said Mr Twomey yesterday. “One of the native councils concerned found another £5OO and was able to put up a substantial building with concrete foundations, and finished in partpermanent materials. “Hearing of this, other native councils asked for assistance so that they could also take similar steps in their own areas of administration. As a result, three new dispensaries were put up.” A Good Start Mr Twomey quoted from a letter recently received from the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific <Sir John Gutch) as follows: —“You will be interested to know that the Sidu settlement has got off to a very good start. There are 24 patients living there under the care of a local council resident dresser Your board's grant of £5OO has enabled a good dispensary with piped water supply to be built.” With the board’s latest grant, there would be six new dispensaries in these backward and disease-ridden islands, said Mr Twomey. They were being built in rough country, far distant from Government hospitals and dispensary treatment centres run by the missions.

“It is an encouragement to my board, and to me, to find that the native peonle themselves now appreciate the value of the medical services provided for them and are coming forward in increasing numbers for treatment,” added Mr Twomey.