Ng's Highlands Are A

Real Eye-Opeher

By Elizabeth Burchill

To visitors, travel in the Highlands of New Guinea opens up a whole new world of wonder, and to those who have lived in other parts of Papua and New Guinea it provides a fascinat ing experience.

AFTER a spell of nursing in Rabaul with the Administration, I flew to Mt. Hagen, in the Western Highlands, for a “look see” at this colourful area, the subject of many books and articles.

By land and air, I saw govern ment-established areas, recently opened-up outposts, and primitive tribes who are destined to be brought into a completely new way of life that took Europeans centuries to develop and assimilate.

From Mt. Hagen I went by Land-Rover, with a European medical assistant to the Wabag sub district station. The winding mountain road, formerly a pig track, extends for 70 miles with many hairpin bends and wooden bridges.

Opened less than two years ago, it was made by primitive men with primitive tools under the supervision of patrol officers with rocks and sand gathered from the rivers.

Highlights of the drive are un surpassed mountain scenery, deep, mysterious valleys, sparkling water falls, native houses low and round like mushrooms, avenues of fairy-like casaurina trees, and picturesque thatch-covered bridges reminiscent of Japanese pergolas over tumbling mountain streams.

Outstanding Hospital

On the way to Wabag, I got off at Mambisanda, 30 miles from Mt.

Hagen. This is the medical head quarters of the American Lutheran Mission, Missouri Synod. Opened in 1948, it is the most outstanding hospital in the Highlands.

Set on a mountain range a mile from the road, the European and native buildings of the mission com mand a magnificent view of Mount Hagen (12,000 ft.), the substantial high school buildings of the mission in the valley below, and extensive areas of cultivated farm land.

The modern, well-equipped Mambisanda Hospital serves 33,000 natives in an area of 40 square miles.

It has 150 beds for natives, a small ward for Europeans, two operating theatres, a pharmacy, X-ray,

laboratory and other features un usual in an outpost hospital.

As nights in the Highlands are cold, respiratory diseases are prevalent and cause many deaths, particularly among children.

At Mambisanda a steam room has been built to deal with this problem.

In charge of the hospital is Dr.

Clarence Connor, an American who gave up a lucrative practice in Chattanoonga, Tennessee, to come to New Guinea with five young children over two years ago because he wanted to heal “really sick people” and advance the cause of Christianity among the heathen.

Physician, surgeon, obstetrician, dentist and maintainence man, he daily encounters “killer” diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, malaria, leprosy and tuberculosis in severity and quantity never before ex perienced.

He keeps the hydro-electric plant in running order and was responsible for the highly efficient steam room which has greatly reduced deaths among children with respiratory com plaints.

Radio Contact Radio contact has been maintained daily with the eight outstations of the mission for the past four years.

This has proved a great boon in dealing with the medical problems and other emergencies of Eupropean missionaries.

During major operations, anxious relatives of native patients watch from a glassed-in observation room.

Once when the doctor amputated a badly crushed leg, the sightseers wailed and cried, then retrieved the severed limb from the floor of the theatre, and buried it with all the ceremony and wailing that ac companies a pagan burial service for a dead person.

Fifty children attend the primary school on the Mambisanda mission station. They are taught by a trained native teacher.

Thirty-five preaching stations are supervised from Mambisanda. These are in charge of native evangelists.