MISSION HOSPITALS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 125, 22 November 1935, Page 13

MISSION HOSPITALS

WORK IN MELANESIA

NEW ZEALAND DOCTOR '

After six years' medical service with the Methodist Mission in the Solomoa Islands and New Britain, Dr. C. S. James, who is at present on leave in Auckland, will take charge next February of the Melanesian Mission Hospital at Fauabu, on the Island of Malaita, in the Solomon Group (states the "New Zealand Herald").

Dr. James, who was trained at Otago University, undertook special postgraduate study in Britain before entering the mission field. In addition to obtaining the fellowship in surgery at Edinburgh, he secured the diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene at the School of Tropical Medicine, London University. He was for threa years in charge of the Methodist Mission Hospital on the island of Choiseul, in the Solomons, aijd served for a similar period, until September last, at the hospital in New Britain, about 27 miles from Rabaul.

The Malaita Hospital, until about a year ago, was ih charge of Dr. L. M. Maybury, who made a considerable development in its work for lepers. The establishment of village settlements led numbers of sufferers to make their homes near the hospital, and when Dr, Maybury was obliged to return to England for family reasons the roli of leper patients had doubled. Unfortunately, after his departure, the work could not be carried on by the nurses who remained in charge.

Dr. James said on Wednesday that he had already had much experience in treating leprosy at the two other island hospitals, and in order to revive the work at Malaita he intended to leave in December for Fiji to study the organisation and work of the leper settlement at Makogai. He would return to New Zealand and leave for the Solomon Islands in February with Mrs. James and their two children.

Medical care was of the greatest benefit to' the natives of Melanesia, Dr. James remarked. Although they lived the same simple life as their forefathers, tropical diseases were common among them. He felt that much credit was due to the Government of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea for its efforts to promote the health of the natives, both directly and by subsidies to mission hospitals and leper stations. The Melanesian Mission was doing much for the natives in its area.