MAKOGAI LEPERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 16, 20 October 1942, Page 3

MAKOGAI LEPERS

TRIBUTE FROM JAMAICA

GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S PRAISE

."At this stage I must take you Across the world again to the Pacific. I found there that one of the Fiji Islands had been set aside as a Leper Home, a small island of great beauty a few hours sail from Su\a, the capital town of Fiji. This leper settlement received lepers from all the Pacific Islands under the jurisdiction of Fiji, New Zealand and Australia. It is managed by the Government of Fiji, with a resident Medical Officer and an administration staff of Marist Sisters. The expense is borne on a par capita basis by the administrations concerned and it is run as a Government. institution on an entirely nonsectarian basis. All Represented All denominations of Christianity are represented amongst those inmates and are visited by their respective pastors, and they have their separate religious services. But quite 75 per cent of these inmates are Wesleyan Methodists, since that denomination is the strongest in that part of the Pacific, and most Fijians belong to the Methodist Church. At one time the lay Superintendent was a Scottish Presbyterian. I Avish you could see those Avards, gentlemen, and. compare them Avith the squalid misery of our own Home (in Jamaica), or even, if that comparison is not fair, AA'ith the soulless material efficiency of the Malayan home. Clean, airy, beautifullykept Avards, Avhere the advanced cases are not mixed AA'ith those in the early stages—separate children's Avards—a dozen or so little cots in each, with the centre tables piled high Avith dolls and teddy bears, and tO3'S of all descriptions sent in laA r ish abundance by the Anglicans and other denominations of New Zealand, and by the Methodists of Fiji—sent to the Sisters to help them Avith their little charges. Gentlemen, it is the birth-right of every child to have a little light and a little laughter. There is no childish laughter in the Spanish Toavia Home (Jamaica), nor is there anything but adult depression. The Avord Home is, a mockery. At Makogai in the Pacific, the Sisters radiate their own atmosphere of loving care, of cheerfulness, and of hope. Yes, gentlemen—hope. Because e\'ery year the Director of Medical Services holds a Medical Board witji the Resident Medical Officer, and half, a dozen or perhaps a dozen patients are discharged as cured and restored to their friends. And may I say here, gentlemen, lest their cheerful, smiling efficiency and their lifelong devotion should obscure the nobility of their Avorli, it has been found that only an exceptional doctor can stand the strain of service on the Leper Island for more than tAvo or three years. He is then changed. Does it matter that the Sisters are strengthened in giA'ing their liA~es, for it. is no less that they giA-e, because of the faith that is in them ? Did it matter Avhat Ave re the religious comactions of the Good Samaritan ? v You Avill remember tha tit. was Zealand brigadier lias been captured than this, that he should giA'e his life for a friend." You may also recollect that in Kipling's story the little Indian boy Kim Avas called, "little friend of all the Avorld." 1 Gentlemen, that is Avhat the Marist. Sisters are—little friends of all the AA'orld.