THE FIJI TIMES, 28TH NOVEMBER 1997

It would have been on an unknown date in 1953, say 44 years ago. I was in partnership with Dr Bill Paley in Suva.

On this morning J P Bayly came to see me as a patient and after the problem was disposed of we were talking. JP (everybody referred to him as JP) opened up a subject very close to my heart, namely the need in Suva for a clinic charging only nominal fees, and dealing with medicine of course, but also with the social needs of a large number of people who needed food much more than they needed medical care.

He had something of the same idea as I had but we were a long way apart as to how we should carry the idea. Over some months we had several meetings and tried to reach agreement. We both had somewhat fixed ideas. Some people might say that we were too fixed in our ideas but it would be kinder to say that by nature we were both determined.

Suffice to say that after many hours of negotiations we reached enough measure of agreement to go ahead with some plans.

I agreed that I would run the clinic for seven years (In fact I continued to run it for twenty eight years). He, for his part, would build and equip the Clinic in Rodwell Road. The fees were two shillings a consultation but nobody would be denied treatment so we saw quite a lot of people for free.

I would be responsible for the social work which would be carried out by a voluntary body of people from the Fellowship of the Anglican Church. This was a bit hard for JP to accept but he became very proud of the social work eventually and visited the work on Tuesday mornings.

We supplied food parcels, necessary medicines, legal advice when required, housing and all sorts of essentials required for human life.

JP was a man who took the long view and it paid off.