Dies On Job

Mr. P. J. Twomey

Mr. Patrick Joseph Twomey,

of Christchurch, New Zealand,

known throughout the South Pacific as “the Leper Man”, died at Suva on August 1 at the age of 71.

MR. TWOMEY had been in the New Hebrides on one of his visits to leper mission stations when he became ill, and he was flown from Vila to Suva, where he entered the CWM Hospital on July 24.

For many years Mr. Twomey cam paigned vigorously for funds for the Makogai leper station, in Fiji, and for stations elsewhere in the Pacific, He raised much money to provide com forts, buildings and equipment for leprosy patients.

Mr. Twomey, in his early life, was a teaching brother in the Marist Order, and taught for some time at Suva. It was then that he first learned of the work being carried out for leper patients.

When ill-health forced him to leave the order, he went back to New Zealand to devote the rest of his life to helping leprosy sufferers.

He became secretary of the NZ Lepers’ Trust Board when it was in corporated in 1939 and retained that post till his death. His wife, who died a few years ago, was a great help to him and her own work for leprosy patients is commemorated in a plaque

which was unveiled recently at St.

Elizabeth’s Home, Suva.

St. Elizabeth’s Home is for dis charged lepers, and Mr. Twomey was a co-founder.

Mr. Twomey was awarded the MBE in 1947 and in 1956 he became a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

Another French award was the Medaille D’Honneur des Epidemics.

The late Pope awarded him the honour of Bene Merenti.

Tributes In Suva the chairman of the Fiji Leper Trust Board (Mr. Maurice Scott) in a tribute, said that Mr.

Twomey’s loss to Fiji and other Pacific Islands was impossible to esti mate.

“For many years he has been the driving force behind the magnificent effort of the people of New Zealand in particular in giving so generously to Makogai and other hospitals in the Pacific,” Mr. Scott said.

“He and Mrs. Twomey, together with the Lepers’ Trust Board of New Zealand have performed a magnificent work that does not get the publicity it deserves, but a work which perhaps has no equal in the South Pacific.”

High tributes to Mr. Twomey were also paid in the Solomons and in New Caledonia, where the sanitorium at Ducos, Noumea, is one of the monu ments to his life’s work.

The chapel of St. Thomas at Ducos was too small to hold all those who wanted to pay their respects to Mr.

Twomey at a Requiem Mass. Many people came from Noumea to take part in the service, including Gov ernment and business leaders. The choir was composed of sufferers from leprosy.

Noumea remembered that the Lepers’ Trust Board had distributed more than £25,000 to Ducos. A special medical building opened there by Mr. Twomey in 1953 also serves as a memorial to NZ servicemen who died in New Caledonia. New Cale donia has a local committee of the Lepers Trust Board.

Mr. Twomey is survived by three sons, the Rev. Father Michael Twomey, SM, of New Zealand, Mr.

John Twomey, of New Zealand, Mr.

Peter Twomey, Australia, and one daughter, a Dominican nun in New Zealand.

The Rev. Father Twomey sang the Requiem Mass for his father at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, Suva. The body was taken to New Zealand for burial.

The late Mr. P. J. Twomey.

Photo: Fred Dunn.