The news of not having to provide their own meals at the hospital was a weight off patients’ shoulders who before had to get meals from home at Tubou Hospital in Lakeba, Lau when admitted.
Having to wait for relatives to bring their meals to the hospital was going to be a thing of the past when the new hospital was completed by the Public Works Department.
The new hospital in Tubou was scheduled to be completed on August or September, 1969. The patients at the old hospital were given free medical attention, but had to provide and cook their own food.
The cooking was done in an old building near the hospital by relatives of patients and the relatives would travel with the patients and stay at the hospital until the patient was well again.
The article on the issue was published in The Fiji Times on Saturday, July 26, 1969. Relatives would not have to cook when the patients move to the new hospital because meals would be provided from the hospital’s modern kitchen. The new hospital, though small was to have the equipment of a large-sized hospital.
When the PWD builders finished the Tubou Hospital patients they were moved to Lomaloma in Northern Lau to build another new hospital to replace the old one. Each hospital cost $68,508 and 90 per cent of that amount had been paid by a British Government grant with the Fiji Government providing the remaining 10 per cent. The hospitals were to have rooms for 12 beds according to the article, an operating theatre, x-ray equipment and maternity facilities.
The old hospitals were converted into nurses’ quarters. “There were be two medical offi cers and two nursing sisters at each of the hospitals,” a medical department spokesman said.
One of the medical officers was known as the sub divisional medical offi cer and the other in charge of the hospital. Of the two nursing sisters at each of the hospitals, one was a health sister while the other in charge of the nursing staff.
“We will have two new medical sub-divisions then – the Northern Sub-division at Lomaloma and the Southern at Tubou, Lakeba,” the spokesman said.
“The Medical Department decided to build new modern hospitals on these islands so as to provide better facilities because the RNZAF Suderlands had been withdrawn from Fiji,” he said.
The Sunderlands saved many lives flying mercy missions between the Lau islands and other islands in Fiji to Suva until they were withdrawn when the RNZAF pulled out of Fiji.
“People with ordinary illnesses would be treated at the hospitals, but we will have to rely on the Medical Department ship Vuniwai to carry emergency cases to Suva,” the spokesman said.
