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Sports |
GOOD morning! Have you been out to dinner lately? If you’re reading The
National in a city or town, why not venture forth and tantalise the
taste buds at any of PNG’s very good restaurants? The weekend is the
perfect time for such excursions, so rediscover the pleasures of getting
out of the house. Book a table for tonight ...
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YES – it’s Quiz result time and a very good morning to our Yamba NSW
Quizzer Col Shephard who also attached a good picture of Gemo; sadly we
can’t share it with you unless a benevolent editor decides to expand our
column space. Given our experiences in the Column Broom Cupboard, we’re
not into counting pre-hatched chickens just yet.
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NEXT Quizzer is Robin Hide who e-mails from Ainslie, one of Canberra’s
oldest established suburbs. We remember staying at the Hotel Ainslie
when but a mere stripling. But we wander ... our correspondent’s e-mail
echoes Dr John Christie’s comments yesterday about Gemo’s beginnings.
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ROBIN adds: “Gemo was established after Dr Fred Clements (Sydney, School
of Public Health and Tropical Medicine) found a very high incidence of
TB (21.5 per 1,000 people at Hanuabada). According to Sr Fairhall, the
29 Hanuabada landowners to the island gave up their rights without
payment, saying ‘If the hospitals are to be for us, we do not want to be
paid for them’.”
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FINALLY, says Robin: “The TB hospital opened on Oct 6, 1937, and the
leprosy patients arrived on Nov 2, 1937. During WW II Gemo became a
general hospital, and was still occupied by the Army when Sr Fairhall
returned in 1945. The hospital was restored as a TB/leprosy hospital and
by September 1950, over 200 patients were on the island; this rose to
316 by mid-1955.”
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MANY thanks to Robin Hide; should you be interested in more material
about Gemo, check Ellen Kettle’s 1979 book That they might live,
published in Sydney by FP Leonard; then there’s Constance Fairhall’s own
book about the earlier years, When two tides meet: Letters from Gemo,
New Guinea. London, Livingstone Press, 1945.
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HAVE a great weekend; more results on Monday!
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– Dee Nesenolis
 
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