HEALTH WORK

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 5, 6 July 1928, Page 11

HEALTH WORK

PACIFIC ISLANDS NATIVE MEDICAL SCHOOL An example of the advantages to ibo gained by a co-ordination of effort between the various Administrations in tho Western Pacific is the recent arrangement made for the establishment in Suva of a Native Medical School to which -native youth from the various territories will bo admitted for medical training to enable >em to undertake minor medical work in the more remote ; islands of the Pacific, which are at prc-i sent attended only periodically by a medical practitioner, and to supplement in the main islands the woiV of the Government uui'cal officers. For : some years past there has been established in Suva a school for training Fijians for similar service in that colony, in conjunction with the Main Government Hospital at Suva, which has functioned with unqualified success, and the recent arrangement is merely the extension to neighbouring Administrations of the facilities i offered by that school. ■-.•■■ Already the Administrations of the Cook Islands and Samoa (New Zealand Government), Tonga, British Solomons, aiid Gilbert' and Ellieo Islands have joined the scheme, and by the end of this; year advance Uds .from most of these territories will- be in training at the school, as well-as native Fijians and Indian pupi]s_ for work amongst the Indian population of Fiji. ADVANTAGES OF SCHEME. ..-. The Government of Fiji has donated to tlio scheme the. site for. the school on the main hospital grounds at Suva, and an extension of the old building to house the,additional pupils: has already ■been, .completed, with lecture rooms and dormitories complete, the capi'taT'opst.'of same being shared by the Administrations concerned. The Eockefelier Institute has also in-terested.-,.itself, in-, the scheme, and has qffered a generous subsidy, tqwafds the expenditure incurred in training these native pupils for four years, viz., from 1928 to 1931 inclusive. New Zealand Cook Islands territory alone extends over a very largo tract of ocean,' and includes many small islands, carrying a population of several hundred people only, some of which are stationed almost'on. the Equator. Owing to their isolated positions, these islands are visited at intervals only by the Government medical officers, and the question of stationing a permanent resident medical officer on these islands is out of the question. Tho advantages of tho scheme outlined above to our own territories alone will be very great, as it will in time enable the stationing on these remote atolls of a native medical officer who will be able to 'deal with all the common ailments of the population, and who will assist very .materially in the work of the Government medical officer during his yearly or half-yearly rounds of inspection.