Medical Aid For Laos

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32251, 20 March 1970, Page 14

Medical Aid For Laos

Medical supplies weighing 1001 b mainly antibiotics and medicine for tropical skin infections —were sent from Christchurch this week to aid refugees in Vientiane and Savannakhet in Laos, where two New Zealand nurses are working. The supplies were collected and sent by the Christchurch branch of Medical Aid Abroad in co-operation with the Christian world service department of the National Council of Churches. The two nurses, who are working under the auspices of the council, are Miss V Crampton, of Auckland, who is in Savannakhet, and Miss M. O’Hara, of Dunedin, who is in Vientiane. The director of the Christian world service department (Mr F. G. Heard) said yesterday that the only supplies previously sent had been those Miss O’Hara had taken With her. In a lettei' to friends in Auckland Miss Crampton said that in the area in which she worked both children and adults continued to require attention for both serious conditions and minor complaints. A group of refugees who had recently arrived after waiting several weeks at an airport had been in a pitiful condition, and it would be a slow process to restore them to a satisfactory nutritional state, she said. Plans for the resettlement of a group of Seno refugees were progressing. A doctor working with the Asian Christian Service was making a survey of the area with the intention of establishing a medical centre or a small hospital- i