LEPERS AT MAKOGAI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19857, 30 January 1928, Page 11

LEPERS AT MAKOGAI.

EFFICIENT TREATMENT. • GRATITUDE FOR GIFTS. INCREASING THE EQUIPMENT. Confidence tliat success would follow the recent conference in Suva to establish a more equitable basis of contribution by interested Governments toward the maintenance of the leper station at Makogai, Fiji, was expressed last evening by Sir Maui Pomarc, Minister for the Cook Islands, and Acting-Minister of Internal Affairs, upon his return from the consultation. Sir Maui had much to say in praise of the administration of Makogai. and voiced the heartfelt thanks of the lepers there gifts sent them from New Zealand. The island of Makogai is of considerable interest to New Zealand, being the central station for lepers from all parts of the Western Pacific, including Samoa and the Dominion, together, with the Cook Islands. Principal of the objects of the conference, said Sir Maui last evening, were to reach an agreement satisfactory to the administrations interested, whereby each Government benefiting by the Makogai institution should bear a more equitable portion of the financial burden and enable the execution of a programme of improvements which the growth of the station in recent years has rendered imperative. "The, work of the conierence was highly successful, and much good must arise therefrom," he said. One of the most beautiful of the Pacific Islands, Makogai is situated nine miles from Levuka, with which it communicates by its own schooner and native crew. At present there are being treated there 439 patients, comprising Fijians, Samoans, Tongans, Indians, Chinese. Solomon Islanders, Cook Islanders, New Zealand Maoris, and some Europeans. It spoke much for the work of the medical administration of Dr. A. Neff, and the care of the Sisters of the Order of Mary, who nobly gave their services in a humanitarian cause, that each year about 20 lepers were discharged cured, while many others who went to the island a "living death" were to-day full of hopes of an early recovery. Cleanliness and orderliness were everywhere apparent on the occasion of the visit. The main settlement is at Dalice, where are situated the hospital, operating theatres, dressing rooms, the female quarters, and the administrative offices. Extending along the coast on either side of Dalice are leper villages ior male outpatients, each territory having its own separate village with attached food plots which are cultivated bj' the patients. Although a wonderful work was being performed at Makogai, said Sir Maui, there was still much to be done in the direction of providing additional medical attendance, additional .accommodation for the alleady overcrowded houses, additional equipment and facilities for the treatment of patients, water supplies, cold storage for foodstuffs, lights, improvements to roads, and not the least important, amusements for the patients. A pathetic incident occurred during the visit, when a New Zealand patient, who had become totally blind through the effects of the dread disease, spoke in the highest appreciation of the interest already shown by the people of the Dominion in supplying Christmas cheer and many other gifts for their comfort. "Tell the people of New Zealand," he said, "that we are being well cared for and everything possible is being done for us." At the present time an effort is being made to provide an entertainment hall, and subscriptions have been freely offering toward this worthy object, not only in New Zealand and Fiji, but from all quarters of the Pacific. This work is now about to be put in hand, but Sir Maui concluded with an appeal to the public to show a quickened interest in the leper asylum at Makogai.