TO TREAT LEPERS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 11

TO TREAT LEPERS

Second Team For Papua A second leprosy Surgery team is being sponsored by the Australian and New Zealand branches of the Mission to Lepers for work in Papua and New Guinea. The Rev. M. Feist, the mission’s New Zealand secretary, said in Auckland recently that the team, an Australian surgeon and his wife who is also a doctor, should start work in Papua early next year. They would specialise in reconstructing hands and feet crippled by leprosy to prepare people for rehabilitation. At present the team was receiving post-graduate training at the mission's research sanatorium in South India. The first leprosy surgery team had been sponsored jointly by the Australian administration and the Mission to Lepers. The second team would be solely the responsibility of the mission. The team would be based at Tari in the New Guinea highlands, where, some years ago, a leprosy centre had been established by Sister E. James, of Auckland, who worked under the New Zealand Methodist Mission. Sister James had since rei turned to New Zealand and was now matron of the Taraahere Eventide Home. The present manager of the Tari Leprosy Centre was another New Zealander. Mr W. G. Griffiths, of Ashburton.