Working

Medical Care Of

Ng Natives

How System Was Working

Letter to the Editor YOU have stimulated a healthy interest in the question of medical training for natives.

The idea of sending natives from New Guinea to the Suva School is by no means new; I “listened-in” to discus sions when I first arrived in New Guinea about 10 years ago, when it was advo cated by some, as an ideal to be aimed at.

As an interested onlooker —for the most part—i claim to have seen a definite growth in the native’s interest in the medical care of his own people.

It probably took years to get the system of village medical tultuls to the stage it was at when I first saw something of it.

A medical tultul was a selected native who was given an elementary training in medical principles, such as would fit him for the care of minor ailments and to help implement and carry out a pub lic health programme for his village. He would have charge of medical equipment and be required to renew his supplies at intervals from the District Native Hos pital, thus giving the medical officer or European medical assistant an oppor tunity of questioning him about his work and helping with any problems.

In about 1938-39, this system was extended by the appointment of Super vising Medical Orderlies. They were recruited from the ranks of hospital orderlies, known as “doctor boys,” who had completed several terms at the hos

pital, and wanted to return to their vil lages. It was part of the duty of these Supervising Orderlies to make regular tours of inspection of each village in their group, and to make a report at regular intervals to the medical officer in charge of the district. From these areas a steady stream of patients, needing treat ment, came to the District Native Hos pital for admission.

There were probably no more than half a dozen medical tultuls in the Ter ritory in 1921; and yet, by June, 1936, there were approximately 3,385 —these are the latest figures available, from the New Guinea Handbook of that year.

Knowing that to “hasten slowly” gov erns a lot of medical procedure, I venture to suggest that upon these lines the Administration was getting somewhere in its effort to educate the native in the care of his own people.

I am, etc.,

Thelma Price, Atna.

Gresford, NSW.