THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION OF HAURAKI MAORI AFTER COLONISATION

1903 his partner, a Dr Cheeseman, was appointed in his place, but resigned in the same year, due to pressure of work at the Coromandel hospital, where he was in sole charge. He and the secretary of the Hospital Board (who claimed that many Maori attended the hospital, most of whom could not pay) asked that the subsidy be transferred to the hospital. This request was refused; a further £30 was saved (JI 1903/1556).

A native school teacher

5.28 Of the teachers who taught at the region's half-dozen native schools during this period (many of whom came and went very quickly), Charles A. Walter at Manaia seems to have been the most absorbed in his medical duties. He has left an archival record that extends from his appointment in 1897 to 1903. Other teachers do not appear to have been as active; had they been so fuller traces would have survived. The elementary medical services provided by the ordinary run of teachers were probably as patchy and irregular as those provided by the medical officers. Still, in either situation an energetic individual could make a difference, at least in the short term (Walter's letters are in BAAA I00I 296d, 297a, 297b; JI 1901/1138, 1903/1556, 1906/396).

5.29 The Education Department was primarily concerned with the health of the children attending school. To this end it operated a scheme by which teachers could from time to time (it is not clear what limit there was on frequency) send to a chemist with whom the Department had a contract for medicines of a fairly elementary kind—ointments, pain relievers (oil of cloves), disinfectants, tonics etc. The Te Kerepehi teacher once requested a 'tonic for girls who are pale' (BAAA roor 596b). There was a limit on the kind of materials available and of La on each order. The distribution may not have been very wide; in 1909 as few as 159 such orders passed through the Departmental office for the whole Auckland Health District (AJHR 1909 H31).

5.30 Walter sought to extend these limited functions to those of a general community health officer, somewhat to the displeasure of Manaia people and to that of the Education Department. He purchased medical equipment of his own, for example, a clinical thermometer, for which the Department refused to refund him the sum of los. Evidently he had been used to medical activity—soon after this appointment to Manaia he offered the Department the use of his own dispensing scales and weights. He claimed to have sent patients (with whitlows and boils) to Coromandel hospital at his own expense. In the same year (1898) he reported: 'I have several cases on my hands of influenza, inflammation of the lungs, and syphilis.' He asked for remedies to deal with the last of these, but the Department replied that remedies for venereal disease did not qualify for supply. The Under-Secretary reminded Walter of the limits to the kind of service he was expected to provide: 'the Government only supplies medicines to the children attending the school, and to adults only on the ground of extreme poverty, or of serious danger involved in procuring medicine from a distance.' Walter, however, kept on treating the community as a whole. In 1903 Dr Cheeseman of Coromandel reported that he had made few visits because Walter told him that no-one needed his services.

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