Laos aid criticised

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33413, 20 December 1973, Page 6

Laos aid criticised

Miss Philippa Hepburn, who has spent four months and a half nursing in Laos, is critical of New Zealand’s aid projects there.

She believes aid money would be better spent, in supporting technicians and medical staff who could train and supervise the local people, as is done in South Vietnam. Personal experience has made Miss Hepburn especially critical of supplying the New Zealand milk biscuit to Asians. Milk is not part of the Laotian diet, and the milk biscuits New Zealand had been sending were therefore not acceptable, she said yesterday. Cows were not milked, but were used as work animals.

However, Miss Hepburn found, tinned milk could be assimilated, and was specially useful in improving the nutrition of nursing mothers. Many otherwise could not

produce enough milk to feed their babies.

Tinned milk was very expensive to buy, and this could be a worth-while New Zealand aid project, she said. Shipping costs were a major problem with food aid. When she arrived in Laos, Miss Hepburn found that the Thomas A. Dooley Foundation, with which she was a volunteer, had cancelled a shipment of milk biscuits. “They found New Zealand wanted too many statistics, which are very difficult to obtain from the refugee population we worked with,” she said. “They were also asked to pay $3OOO freight for the shipment, which they just couldn’t afford.”

The foundation, a private American organisation working among refugees in Asia, has its American aid supplies

air-freighted without charge. Miss Hepburn said she could not understand to what use the abattoir the New Zealand Government planned to build in Vietiane would be put. The people did not farm animals on a large scale, and were too poor to buy meat. The best way to improve their nutrition — to which she attributed much of the apathy she encountered — was to encourage them to grow foods for a more balanced diet. The foundation already had agricultural teams in the field.

What the people needed most was a “boss!’ who could provide the guidance she found was necessary. The foundation was training Laotian mechanics to a good standard, and also local nurses, but found they had to be supervised.