Mother Mary Agnes of Makogai Retires
pp. 89-91 · Read in the full issue
Makogai Retires
From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, March 27.
THE Rev. Mother Mary Agnes, MBE, Mother Superior at the Fiji Leprosy Hospital, Makogai. celebrated her 80th birthday on March 21 and simul taneously retired after 33 years’ devoted service at the island.
A brilliant organiser and unfring worker, Mother Mary Agnes has played a key role in the building of Makogai into a hospital-community which is regarded as a model of its kind both within and outside the Empire.
The acting Governor (Mr. A. F. R. Stod dart), the Secretary for Fijian Affairs (Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna), the Director of Medical Services (Dr. J. M. Cruikshank), Sir Henry Scott and Messrs. L. Ncerr and W. E. Donovan went by flying-boat from Suva to attend an official ceremony.
Sister Hilda will succeed Mother Mary Agnes as Superior at Makogai.
In speaking in appreciation of Mother Agnes’ work, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna said: “In this world we are given to evaluating services. We regard those who serve their country—such as sailors, soldiers, airmen or even civil servants—as doing a fine job of work, but fair targets for the venting of our spleen. We consider those who without thought of reward serve their people in looking after the sore and afflicted as also doing splendid work, and we seldom criticise them. What then do we think of those who so willingly give up their lives to serve the cause of humanity in ministering to stricken peoples of alien and backward racies,
peoples with whom they have little in common. This is the highest form of service. And that is just the work that the Rev. Mother has been doing for over thirty of the best years of her life. Rev.
Mother, may I on behalf of the Fijian people whom you have served so well, who hold you in the highest esteem and re spect and who are a silent people, wish you many years for work, leisure and happiness.”
THE nursing staff of the Makogai Leprosy Hospital is supplied by the Roman Catholic Order of the Sisters of Mary of whom Mother Agneg is a member.
She went to Makogai from her native France in 1916, five years after the hos pital was opened.
In 1937 the MBE was conferred on her for her great work.
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Sir Arthur Richards, former Governor of Fiji, was so impressed with her work that, when he was transferred to Jamaica he was anxious to introduce her methods to the Leper Home there.
Mother Agnes shortly afterwards went to France on a holiday and on her way back to Fiji called at Jamaica. As a re sult, a nursing staff of the same Order was appointed to the Leper Home with a nucleus of three Makogai-tramed sisters.