More Government aid to lepers sought

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32633, 15 June 1971, Page 10

More Government aid to lepers sought

Aid amounting to thousands of dollars that was poured into the Pacific every year by the Lepers’ Trust Board should be supplemented by more Government aid to islands where leprosy was prevalent, said Mr A. H. T. Rose, chairman of the New Zealand Lepers’ Trust Board yesterday. “The Government should realise that aid means trade,” he said. "The best place to start such aid would be at the University of the South Pacific, which is housed in an old Royal New Zealand Air Force station and is badly in need of new buildings and general support. “If the Lepers’ Trust Board, which is a voluntary organisation, can manage to give considerable monetary and medical aid, then surely the Government can do something. “There is a great deal of interest in getting New Zealand goods in the Solomon Islands," said Mr Rose. “New Zealand prices and quality are quite acceptable to the islanders and, if our goods are packed properly for tropical conditions, a regular shipping service is maintained and order requirements are met more exactly, I see a wide open market for New Zealand produce.” Areas of need

Mr Rose said that it was in the Solomons and New Hebrides, where medical services were not controlled by the Government, as in Fiji, that leprosy missions were, needed most. “In the sheer subsistence

level of medical aid, which is . generally very poor in the • outbacks, the Solomons and . New Hebrides are much worse off. Although drugs ' are available to cure leprosy, < there are many areas where the paucity of medical services has little or no effect in curing the disease,” he , said. One of the main problems with the treatment of leprosy in the Pacific Islands was transport, because many of those afflicted with the disease lived on isolated islands, said Mr Rose. “Improvement in medical services in these places ' depends on the standard of the general education of the ■ islanders.” he said. “But it ■ takes a long time and a lot of money to give them medical training of a high z enough standard. School of medicine “It is likely that the school ' of medicine will be incorp- '■ orated into the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, and this, more than anything, should make the matter of Government aid to the university of some importance,” said Mr Rose. Mr Rose has just returned from a tour of Fiji, the * Solomon Islands, and the.’ New Hebrides, where he i visited outback leprosy ’ mission stations and Suva medical authorities. He is the first representative of the board to visit the islands i since 1963 and it is expected . that, from now on, a member of the board will be sent to visit leprosy stations in the Pacific every two or three years.