TREATMENT OF LEPERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23616, 28 March 1940, Page 3

TREATMENT OF LEPERS

DIOCESE OF MELANESIA MEDICAL MISSIONARIES' WORK The excellent work of the medical missionaries in the .Diocese of Melanesia, particularly in relation to leper patients, was described recently by Sister Phyllis Talbot, who is at present in New Zealand on furlough. Sister Talbot said that the large amount of sickness on the islands made the medical missionary indispensable. The centre for the medical work was the Hospital of the Epiphany at Fauabu, in the Solomon Islands, which had its own electric light plant and a modern operating thoa.tre. The medical work in other centres, however, was being carried on under great difficulties. On Tlgi Island, in the Solomons, there were.."JO patients with only one nurse to care for them and at "Lolowai in the New Hebrides, Miss Cunnold, of Auckland, with the'assistance of two native girls and two hoys, looked after a hospital of 36 beds. Very encouraging results had followed the treatment of leprosy, continued Miss Talbot. Tho number of lepers on Malaita alone was estimated at 000 among a population of 40,000, and the disease was by no means confined to Malaita. Leprosy could be divided into two types, infectious and non-infectious, and'at present the mission was able to treat only the latter type. The cost of keeping and treating a leper, said Sister Talbot, was £lO a year and tbe cure was slow, usually taking more than two years. The life of the leper patient was a sad one, for, separated from his village and family, he found a home in the scrub on the outskirts of the village and one© a week would go to the dispensary to receive injections and obtain sufficient medicine to last until his next visit. Sister Talbot said the mission hoped, when further assistance was forthcoming, to give full treatment to the infectious lepers as well as to the non* in feet ions type.