IN MEMORIAM - DR H C COOMBS
by Jim Toner (Published Una Voce March 1998, Page 30)

The signature of Dr H C Coombs will be known to everyone who ever glanced at a Pound note. “Nugget” Coombs who recently died aged 91 was also better known for his efforts on behalf of Aborigines than for Papua New Guineans. Nevertheless, his connection with PNG although slight was of great importance.

When Dr John Gunther took charge of the Public Health Department in PNG after World War II he sought commencement of an Aid Post Orderly system to meet the needs of village people. When completed it put PNG, in his words, ‘twenty years in front of the Chinese barefoot doctors’. However, its funding was entirely dependent upon a compassionate decision by Dr Coombs, then Australia’s Director-General of Post-War Reconstruction for the Chifley government. He agreed that Commonwealth Training Scheme funds could be used for Papua New Guinea although as Gunther said, “It was really stretching the provisions of the Scheme to the ultimate”.

Forty years later I showed Dr Coombs the section in Taim Bilong Masta (p.201) which lauded him for his decision but also reported the unfortunate affair at Faita village in the Madang district in 1954. A newly trained Orderly had heard unofficially of a wartime stratagem - that if sterile water was unobtainable you could use fresh coconut milk. He used the latter to mix up arsenic for the treatment of yaws. Apparently he used the same kulau (coconut) two days running, the milk became infected, and seventeen people died. Dr Coombs, then 82, had never read about this and an expression of concern crossed his face as he did so. He leaned back in his chair and pondered. Then with a wry smile he said, “Well Jim, win some ...” and I echoed “...lose some!”. That may sound unkind but, by that stage, was really the only sensible way to look at it. The fact was that the assent by Coombs (of borderline legality?) To Gunther’s plea in 1948 resulted in the saving of the lives of many thousands of village folk throughout PNG.