Tragedy

Isolation Can Mean Tragedy In Lonely Polynesia

From Our Own Correspondent MANGAIA, Cook Islands.

ONE of the less happy features of life in the Lower Cooks is the prevalence among male natives of various forms of hernia caused by the frequent lifting of excessive weights, such as loads of firewood, fishing-canoes, etc. The number of treated and un-treated sufferers, past and present, is fairly numerous here at Mangaia. Those treated generally proceed to Rarotonga Hospital, where operations for hernia relief are a routine practice.

Cured, the patient returns to his home island. In some cases, where the patient does not take care of himself, a relapse occurs.

One such case, an elderly native, recently kept the radio between here and the head island working overtime. The patient had already been operated on in Rarotonga, and was found, after his resumption here of normal pursuits, to need renewed treatment for a strangulated hernia, the most dangerous form of the condition.

Unfortunately, no ships were available to take him over to hospital, so ah emergency operation was performed, under radio-phone direction of Dr. T. R.

A. Davis from Rarotonga, by the local NMP and our District Nurse, Mrs. Ryan.

Carried out under difficult conditions, the operation was successful, and with a younger patient would have been another “routine job” leading to uneventful recovery. In this (case, unfortunately, the patient’s age told against him, and be died some time later.

Whether he could have been saved at Rarotonga is debatable, but the incident provides yet another argument for rapid inter-island transport not dependent upon commercial or climatic conditions. The possibilities of the helicopter have not been investigated yet for emergency cases Df this kind. For islands where there is no airstrip, this type of aircraft appears :he only solution of the problem.

Editorial Note: If we remember aright, certain young New Zealand airmen were, right after the war, anxious to start charter air services in New Zealand Pacific Territories. They were stamped cn with both feet by the then New Zea land Government which was busy nation alising all air-transport. Probably it is :oo late to unscramble the eggs now—all :he enterprising airmen are dug in some where else. It is no accident that even :he remotest parts of Papua-New Guinea are linked by air to-day. Between the wars, aviation was pioneered there by tnen of enterprise who worked on the principle of “You clear a bit of bush and we’ll put a plane down on it.”