In Tongan Group

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 308, 20 March 1928, Page 16

In Tongan Group

MEDICAL WORK AMONG NATIVES N.Z. DOCTOR RETURNS What efficient medical service • will do for natives is revealed in the fact that last year the death rate in the Tongan group was 11 per 1,000. Infantile deaths numbered only 40 in every thousand, a lower ratio than prevails in New Zealand. T~)R. C. RXJHEN, whose home is in Dunedin, and who returned on the Tofua yesterday for his first holiday since 1925, stated that • the various diseases to which the natives were prone were now- well under control. The work of the medical staff had been made much easier, he said, owing to the fact that the natives had now become accustomed to European treatment and appreciated it. Infant welfare work was also progressing, stated Dr. Ruhen, and within the next few years it was hoped to establish a system similar to New Zealand’s Plunket Society. A native hospital, staffed by a European matron, two native probationers, and a staff of six orderlies, was established at Nukualofa, and there were also two small hospitals and three dispensing stations throughout tne group Tuberculosis in a mild form was increasing among" the natives, said Dr. Ruhen, but it was found that two or three years’ treatment generally sufficed to effect a cure.