Australia Remains
p. 30 · Read in the full issue
Aloof
All Other Pacific Territories Support Suva Medical School
FOR some reason that never has been stated, Australia holds aloof from the Suva Medical School. This ad mirable and eminently successful insti tution continues to turn out Native Medical Practitioners, in increasing numbers—already, their work, going on all over the Pacific, is having a percep tible effect upon the vital statistics of the various Territories. The 1939 annual re port of the acting director, Dr. T. Clunie, shows that the following now send selected native students to the School— British: Fiji, Gilbert and Ellice, Solo mons, Tonga, New Hebrides; New Zea land: Cook Islands, Samoa, Niue; Triple Mandate; Nauru; United States: Eastern Samoa. The following students, under going the four years’ course, were in resi dence at the end of 1939: Fijians 14 Fiji-Indians ... 1 Nauruans 2 Rotumans 1 Ellice Islanders ... 1 Gilbertese 3 Solomon Islanders ... 3
Tongans • • 4
Cook Islanders 3 Samoans 6 E. Samoans (U.S.A.) . 2 Total 40 Owing to the generous help given by the Rockefeller Foundation in the estab lishment of the School, it is possible to maintain native students there for about
£45 per year per man—probably the cheapest institution of its kind in the world.
The Fiji Government, for years, has hoped that Australia, being responsible for the health of at least a million natives, in Papua, New Guinea and the Northern Territory, would support the School. But Canberra thinks otherwise — no one knows why—and so the Terri tories of Papua and New Guinea are without Native Medical Practitioners— apart from a few natives, indifferently trained in the native hospitals.