Health of G. & E. People

System of Training Nurses

WHEN Dr. D. C. M. Macpherson, Assist ant Director of Medical Services, Fiji, arrived back in Suva, recently, after a medical survey of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, he brought with him two Ellice Island girls, who had been working in the hospital at Funafuti.

These girls have been selected for spe cial training at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, in Suva. On com pletion, they will return to their own colony (Gilbert and Ellice Islands) to instruct other native girls in nursing work.

This is an interesting development of the organisation under which the Gov ernment of Fiji and the High Commis sion for the Western Pacific are train ing native medical practitioners to pro tect the health of their own people in the various territories. In the course of his tour in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Dr. Macpherson found that the various N.M.P.’s trained at Suva Medical School are doing fine work, including quite a lot of surgery.

Dr. Macpherson told the “Fiji Times”, in an interview, that the health of the people in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands is remarkably good, in spite of the long continued drought of recent years, which especially affected the southern islands of the Gilbert Group. Filariasis is still prevalent in the Ellice Group; but yaws, once the scourge of the Central Pacific, has practically disappeared from the Colony.

Mr. C. W. Thomas, Jim., of Morris, Hedstrom, Ltd., Levuka, Fiji, has been transferred to the Co.’s Tavua branch.