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Doctor in Vanuatu

This is a memorable tale and a unique story of an Australian doctor practicing in the South Pacific. For seven years in the 1960s, Ted Freeman was the doctor in charge of the main practising and training hospital of the New Hebrides – what is today Vanuatu.

In what was the tin-roofed, wooden-walled Paton Memorial Hospital on Iririki Island, now the splendid location of the Iririki Island Resort, he treated conditions from broken bones to meningitis, rheumatic fever and TB – when necessary, operating with a medical text propped on a lectern installed over an archaic ex-US army operating table and by torch-light.

Travelling, queasily, in small boats and planes, Ted visited and assisted the even more remote hospitals and clinics on the outer islands. With his endlessly supportive wife, Dorothy, a young family and a largely local support team, he worked to heal and mend, and to improve the medical skills and resources in what was then a remote corner of the world.

An appointee of the Australian Presbyterian Board of Mission, Ted established a blood bank, updated anaesthetic procedures, taught birth control, and came a poor second in the Iririki Cup Challenge.

This evocative, entertaining and amusing memoir brings to life the challenges, joys and frustrations of living and working in the South Pacific.