Solomons

Leprosy In The

Pressing Need for Government Action

Prom a Special Correspondent rE article in the November “PIM”, pointing out that there now are about 900 lepers in the British Solo mon Islands, for whom the Administra tion has done practically nothing, directs attention to a ■ problem that should receive immediate attention.

Leprosy control and treatment, more than any other branch of native wel fare, should be a straight-out Govern ment responsibility, as it is in other British Colonial territories, yet it has been left mainly to the missions to alle viate the sufferings of these wretched people. For instance, the Melanesian (Anglican) Mission provides special treat ment for a number of lepers at its Fauabu hospital on Malaita. The lepers are segregated from other hospital patients, live in individual houses which are kept scrupulously clean, run their own extensive food gardens, and are generally well cared for. Certain of the huts are maintained by European sub scribers in England and Australia, but the main burden of the cost is upon the general funds of the Mission, A special study of leprosy and its treatment on modern lines was under taken at Fauabu by the former medical officer of the Mission, Dr. C. S. James; and this has been continued by his suc cessor, Dr. J. D. Thompson. The Metho dist Mission hospital (the Helen Goldie Memorial Hospital), at Vella Lavella, near Gizo, also has a small leper ad junct under Dr. A. G. Rutter, who, like Dr. Thompson, is a young New Zea lander and a comparatively recent arri val in the Protectorate. While the zeal and service of these two institutions in the cause of the unfortunate lepers are to be admired, they represent a mere nibble at the problem in the Protec torate.

The BSI Government did make a start in the desired direction in 1937, when Dr. James Ross Innes, a specialist now occupying a key advisory and research position in leprosy control in Africa, under the Colonial Office, went to the Protectorate and made an intensive analysis of the situation. Working under difficult conditions of transport and assisted by Administrative officers and selected NMP’s, Ross Innes examined 26,615 natives in Malaita, Guadalcanal.

Ysabel, Nggelo, and San Cristoval. Of this number, 221 were found to be lepers, some in an advanced and incurable con dition; this represented a percentage of 1.02, making an estimated total of 900 lepers for the whole Protectorate popu lation of approximately 90,000.

Ross Innes’s report was completed in March, 1938. and published as a Gov ernment paper at Suva. It created a good deal of interest in medical and native administration circles.

After stating certain detailed conclu sions, and making some shrewd observa tions upon BSI native affairs in general, Ross Innes recommended unequivocally the setting-up of a special leper colony under direct Government medical con trol, to be developed on the modern lines of the Uzuakoli Leper Colony in Nigeria.

He selected Ysabel District as probably the most suitable region for the location of the proposed settlement.

So far, so good. The work of Ross Innes. including the publication of the report, probably cost the Solomons’ Trea

sury well over £l,OOO. But, as with cer tain other similarly practical and well reasoned expert jobs done by outside specialists in the various Western Pacific territories, nothing further appeared to happen. In other words, while the ini tiative for the scientific approach came from higher authority, the first step being taken regardless of local adminis trative apathy, nothing appears to have been done locally to implement the experts’ reports, in spite of the obvious urgency of the problems concerned.

Ross Innes was at pains in his report to point out the essential relation be tween campaigns for improved health and sanitation and the intelligent combat of disease on the one hand, and the educational standards of the native people on the other. Widespread illiter acy, such as exists in certain parts of the Solomons, necessarily renders any in structional and preventive measures in health practically ineffectual. What is required before any large-scale scheme of health improvement and betterment of everyday hygiene can be effective, Ross Innes contends, is a higher standard of educational attainment among the natives, including vernacular literacy.

This conclusion is of special interest when it is noted that, as with leprosy, all the schooling received by BSI natives is provided by the missions, with no organised or regular system of super vision or financial assistance from the Government.

Here, then, are two closely-related, urgent needs in the field of native wel fare in the Solomons—leprosy and edu cation. In face of such a situation, it surely is difficult for the Treasury at Tulagi to justify its slow accumulation over a period of years of £90,000 of reserve funds, upon which, until drawn upon recently because of war conditions, a tight hold has always been kept.