BRITISH SOUTH PACIFIC

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 34, 9 February 1926, Page 8

BRITISH SOUTH PACIFIC

CENTRAL MEDICAL SCHOOL

TRAINING OF NATIVE DOCTORS

SUGGESTION BY TEOPICAL DISEASE EXPERT.

The question .of a medical service for a group like the Cook Islands — scattered islands, with small populations—ia a complex one. With the best of intentions on the part of the Government, occasional visits from a European doctor are unsatisfactory for the dreadful emergencies that occasionally arise and for current .severe sickness. . . . This medical situation is a common one on Pacific islands, and will never be properly corrected till a system of native doctors is established such ,■ as obtains in Fiji. Dr. S^ M. Lambert, M.D., an. expert I on tropical diseases, recently completed a health survey of the Cook Islands. In a report to the International Health Board of the Boekefeller Foujidation, he expresses the above opinion. vDr. Lambert says:— '' The Medical Department consists of a chief medical officer and an assistant medical officer. The chief medical officer resides on Earotonga, where he runs the hospital and cares for the ] population. The plan is for the assistant medical officer to pass through the group as occasion affords, and treat the population of the outer islands. There are qualified white nurses on Aitutaki and Mangaia. There is a hospital at Avarua, Karotonga, under a qualified white matron, which is to be doubled by recent a/ldition.s and readjustments. The hospital is well equipped for its purpose and well run., COMPLEX PROBLEM. The question of a medical service for a group like the Cook Islands, with scattered islarrds and small populations, is a complex one. With the best of intentions on the part of the Government, occasional visits from a European doctor are nnsatisfactory for the dreadful emergencies that occasionally arise and for current severe sickness. Then, too, these men, who are transient, do not understand the language nor the native mind. The same argument applies to white nurses, though a system of nurses would be more satisfactory; in fact, the two nurses at Mangaia and Aitutaki have rendered very valuable services indeed. But there are many conditions for which the Maori ;will not go to a European woman, obviously, and many which they are not prepared to deal with. , " NATIVE DOCTORS. "This medical situation is a common one on Pacific Islands, and will never be properly corrected till a system of native doctors is established such as obtains in Fiji; The colony of Fiji trains native Fijians in hygiene, medicine, and surgery, particularly in Pacific Island conditions. They have ample material at Suva for the complete instruction of their students in connection with their own Memorial Hospital, except in the particular of malaria, so common to Melanesian Islands. Where these native Fijian doctors have been tried in other groups ■ than Fiji they have made even a better record •than in their own group. "ALL COMBINING." "Each group is too small to provide such a school except at. great expense, but all combining may make a.notable one. At present, at the invitation of Sir Eyre Hutson, High Commissioner for the Western Pacific and Governor of Fiji,' it seems possible that Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Gilberts and Elliees, the British Solomons, the New Hebrides Condominium, and the Cook Islands may combine to enlarge the Fiji Memorial School to furnish native medical practitioners for these groups. It would seem desirable for the Australian colonies of Papua and New Guinea, which have identical problems, to have a share in this school, thus making it an effort of the entire British South Pacific.

"The native medical practitioner, while not intended to be educated to the standard of the qualified European, starts in with an enormous advantage in his knowledge of the native lanand native mind. Some of these men get astonishing results, and often gain the professional confidence of European residents where no European doctor is available.

"These native doctors, well trained in Western medicine, and understanding the native mind, will do more than any other thing to check the decline of native races and start population on the up-grade, with a resultant productivity and prosperity of the South Pacific. This same plan might be tried in higher technical and general education. In the South Pacific, as elsewhere, in unity there is strength."