Beyond the Next Valley: Poems By a Medical Officer in Papua Guinea

Beyond the Next Valley is a book of poems written fifty years after David Healey and his late wife Annabel, worked in Papua New Guinea between 1972 and 1974. The author was a medical Officer working in Kundiawa Hospital, Chimbu District and later as District Medical Officer for the Southern Highlands based in Mendi. His wife worked in the Mendi Leprosy Clinic and workshops.  They also went on various medical patrols together and there are short references to the era when the Southern Highlands region was opened up in the 1930s and previously unknown populations were discovered. The poems reflect their work and their interaction with the local people as well as the effect it had on them on their return to the UK.