St.Luke’s is a REFERRAL CENTRE for leprosy patients suffering from complications, which cannot be managed by the General Practitioners, Private Clinics and Government Hospitals.To meet the need of such patients in need of hospitalization,there are three wards, two for men, and one for women, with 32 beds each. The in-patients receive not only free treatment, but also food,lodge, and clothing free of cost.

Leprosy-affliction among Men and Women is in the ratio of 2:1.If the plight of the leprosy patient in general is pathetic, that of the female leprosy patient is tragic. When a husband is affected by leprosy, the typical Indian wife (Bharat-sthree) sticks to him until death parteth them. But if a wife is attacked by leprosy, the husband very often deserts his wife.

HEALTH EDUCATION – with live-demonstration to students of the Teaching College.Leprosy is still shrouded in mystery and superstition. Many do not even know that leprosy can be cured. Visiting villages and schools with films and audio-visual aids, the St.Luke’s Leprosarium’s Health Education Team preaches the good news that leprosy is curable.

Before Treatment – June ’91

After Treatment – July’94

Is leprosy curable?

Yes, it is curable indeed.

The marvel of modern Multi-Drug Therapy. Jesuraj, came rather late, after the disease has turned infectitious. Thanks to Multi-Drug Therapy, he is fully cured. What more, in the hospital where he was an in-patient, he is the Physiotherapist to-day.

Even after cure, the ill-informed society continues to ostracize the ex-leprosy subjects, denying them employment opportunities. These unfortunate victims have only one option, begging – a tragedy as bad as the disease itself. St.Luke’s extends its services even beyond the hospital. The rejected are employed in the Agri-Farm attached to the Leprosarium.

GOAT FARMING

For some curious reasons, most of the leprosy patients of the Peikulam Leprosarium are of the shepherd caste – a very backward community, socially, educationally and economically. The only trade known to them is goat/sheep/cattle-farming. After cure, many don’t have anything to go back to; some even become beggars. But St.Luke’s gives them training in scientific goat-farming.

After the on-hands training, they are sent home with a few goats given free(returnable in kind later when the animal kids). By rearing the high-breed they manage to earn a tidy sum.

A cautious beginning has been made in pig-farming using Yorkshire pigs.In pig-farming, the principal item of expenditure is the feeding cost. The ‘food’ comes ‘free’ from the two kitchens as kitchen-waste, and from the left-over food of the 260 inmates.

Eeshwari accidentally stubbed her big toe against a stone sustaining a minor injury. The insensitive toe and food did not hurt. She felt no need to dress the wound or go to a doctor.

The wound got infected. The infection spread backward to the heel and upwards to the ankle, and then threatened to climb up to the knee. Septicaemie set in. High fever and chills shook her body. Only then she went to the doctor. By then it was too late. Only a below-knee amputation could save her limb.

Eeshwari did not give up. She was given training in sewing and gifted with a sewing machine. She does not beg, but is earning a reasonably decent livelihood as a tailor.

What more, she is happily married to a fellow leprosy patient, who is now cured and well-rehabilitated.

After complete cure this patient went back to his village with cure-certificate from the doctor. To the villager, ‘once a leper, a leper for ever’. The certificate did not mean anything. His former employer refused to take him back. He knocked at the doors of dozen of other employers but in vain. The stigma ran too deep.

He almost decided to beg. St.Luke’s intervented in time, training him in weaving plastic bags. Supplied with the raw-material he now weaves colourful and useful baskets. St.Luke’s markets them for him. Sundaram need not beg or starve any more . He earns a tidy income and lives with dignity.

Sometimes, leprosy can cause blindness. The plight of a blind leprosy patient is pathetic beyond words.

A ‘normal’ blind person manages to ‘grope’ his way thro’ with the help of his sensitive hands and feet.

But a leprosy patient has already lost sensitivity in the hands and feet. Now he cannot see. Therefore he cannot feel his way thro’. In short, he is hopelessly helpless. Such patients come to St.Luke’s, begging for refuge. “Fate has been too cruel”, they lament. “We are too disabled even to beg. Please don’t say, ‘there is no room’. We cannot go back, and we will not go back’”.

St.Luke’s offers permanent shelter to such desperately disabled patients. They are cared for life and never sent back.