Moresby stabbing
p. 47 · Read in the full issue
Inquiry makes safety suggestions after Moresby stabbing
The attack on an Australian girl, Miss Jill Carrol, living at the YWCA hostel in Port Moresby in October has forced the Ad ministration to look closely into the security arrangements at women’s hostels in Port Moresby and throughout the P-NG terri tory.
Miss Carrol, who had been in Port Moresby for about three weeks, was stabbed above the breast by a prowler. As soon as the stabbing was reported. Administrator Mr. Hay appointed a three-man committee consisting of an official Government Member of the House of Assembly, an Administration hostel inspector and a Police Superintendent, to in vestigate hostels’ security around Port Moresby.
Bled to death
In September at Mount Hagen a European woman was stabbed at her home and a Madang nurse bled to death after being stabbed in the groin at the nurses’ quarters.
The three-man committee visited Administration and privately owned hostels for women in Port Moresby, and has come up with nine recom mendation, which include security fences around hostels, adequate light ing in strategic positions, shrubs around entrances and paths pruned to prevent prowlers lurking within them.
Main entrance doors should be locked with a dead lock, bedroom doors be fitted with safety chains, hostels employ nightwatchmen, pre ferably retired policemen, future, hostels for women should not be sited in cuttings on hill sides. These recommendations are to be approved by the Administrator. • In the same month, Dr. R. F. R.
Scragg, Director of the Depart ment of Public Health in P-NG, made an appeal for trained nurses who have left their profession for marriage to return to nursing as there was a serious shortage of nurses in the rapidly expanding health service.