MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Dr. Stanham & wife visit the Falklands.

Dr. Jorge C. Stanham and his wife Alice visiting the King Penguin colony at Volunteer Point in the Falkland Islands.

Dr. Stanham is Medical Director, Medicina Interna & Salud Publica at the Hospital Britanico in Montevideo, Uruguay.

He and his wife are on a weeks visit to the Falklands as guests of the Falkland Islands Government. The invitation was extended to Dr. Stanham & his wife, in recognition of the excellent service which the Hospital has provided to residents of the Falklands, stretching back many many years.

Over the last 20 years, since the Falklands War of 1982, the British Hospital in Montevideo has received many patients from the Falklands, most of whom required urgent medical treatment which not readily available in the Islands. The superb facilities and expertise of the doctors and nursing staff at the Hospital Britanico has saved the lives of many civilians and British Servicemen, who have been flown to Montevideo by the Royal Air Force directly from the Islands. Just last Saturday, a British soldier, badly injured in a road accident, and Mr. Duncan from Hill Cove were flown to Montevideo.

Dr. Roger Diggle, Chief Medical Officer, paid tribute to the 'excellent service' which the Falklands has received from the British Hospital in Montevideo 'over many years'.

He said that, 'A significant number of people living in the Falklands owe their lives to the help given by the British Hospital. There are the Islanders themselves, plus foreign fishermen, Military personnel and members of the British Antarctic Survey, who have all benefited. We can ring Montevideo during the day or night and always find help at hand.

Dr. Diggle went on to say, 'We are very pleased to have Dr. Stanham in the Falklands. We thank him and his father before him, for their splendid cooperation with our hospital here in the Islands. visit has also provided him with an opportunity to see how we manage our hospital, and in particular the complexity of moving a patient, requiring emergency treatment, from the Stanley hospital to the Military base by helicopter and then on to Uruguay by a Royal Air Force aircraft'.