MEDICAL SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 87, 13 April 1944, Page 6

MEDICAL SERVICE

PACIFIC ISLANDS

CO-ORDINATED SCHEME

Proposals for a comprehensive coordinated health service for islands in the South and South-west Pacific were referred to in a statement last evening by the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Sullivan).

Last year, said Mr. Sullivan, the New Zealand Government lent the Government of Fiji the services of the New Zealand Director-General of Health; Dr. M. K. Watt, and the Director of the Nursing Division, Miss M. 1.. Lambie, who submitted a report on the public health and medical services required in the Colony of Fiji. Suggestions were advanced at the same time for a unified public health and medical service throughout the nearer islands.

"The recommendations made in this report have been considered by the United Kingdom Government and the Fiji authorities, and the possibility of developing a comprehensive public health and medical service embracing all the territories controlled by Fiji, the Western Pacific High Commission, and other neighbouring Governments is now being examined," said Mr. Sullivan. ■ ■' ' "Sir Philip Mitchell, Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, and his Director of Medical Services, Dr. V. W. T. McGusty, who visited New Zealand recently, discussed the scheme with the Prime Minister and other Ministers.

"We are fully seized of the practical benefits of the plan, and will do what we can to assist the successful launching of the scheme. Questions concerning organisation, costs, etc., are at present under consideration. The proposals provide for representation of New Zealand on the directing body. "The scheme covers development of the Central Medical School, Suva, which has been made available for some years for the training of native medical practitioners for service in our islands, as well as for assistance to the central leper station at Makogai, where patients from our island territories receive treatment. Provision is made for the interchange of medical officers between the various groups, thus assuring uniformity in health and medical services throughout the area. "New Zealand and its dependencies have for a number of years been contributing towards the cost of the Central Medical School and the leper station at Makogai," concluded Mr. Sullivan, and, considering the benefits which should ensue from the implementation of the present Government scheme, I am quite -certain that any additional expenditure—which, from the estimates submitted, would not be substantial—will be well worth while and would be an earnest of the desire of the Governments concerned to provide an adequate and efficient medical service for the people of the islands."