The oral histories utilized by this research reveal the experiences of those
who suffered leprosy in five South Pacific nations, Fiji, New Caledonia,
Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu. This thesis explores how leprosy and its stigma
impacted on the lives of these people, some of whom suffered decades of
isolation at various leprosaria including the case of one New Caledonian
resident for nearly seventy years.
The testimonies of their experiences of diagnosis, removal into isolation,
medical treatment and eventual discharge back to their homes implicitly
contain descriptions of attitudes of stigma in their communities. This
research reveals that where there is openness and knowledge about the
minimal risk of leprosy contagion, as occurred in Fiji and Vanuatu from the
1950s, less stigma is attached to the disease. Nevertheless even in these
countries, prior to the 1950s and availability of any effective medication, the
fear and horror of the physical effects of leprosy was such that the victims
were either cast out or chose to move away from their homes. This
segregation led to groups of leprosy sufferers banding together to help care
for each other. Once the policy of isolation in leprosaria was implemented,
advanced cases of leprosy benefited from the better medical facilities and
found opportunities for friendships and camaraderie. However, where the
conditions at leprosaria were miserable and movements of the residents
visibly restricted by fences, as occurred in Samoa and Tonga, there was
heightened leprosy stigma.
Perceptions of stigma varied from person to person and region to region.
Higher levels of stigma were evident in New Caledonia, where leprosaria
had been situated at former prison sites and strict isolation enforced, and in
Tonga, where the removal of all leprosy sufferers had from the earliest days
been associated with biblical strictures asserting that leprosy was a curse and
the sufferers unclean. Following the availability of sulphone treatment in
the South Pacific in the1950s and the improved medication in the 1980s,
leprosy need no longer be physically disfiguring or disabling. Assisted by
the generous donations gathered by the Pacific Leprosy Foundation in New
Zealand to the medical services at the central leprosy hospital in Fiji, and by
direct assistance to leprosy sufferers in the Pacific, the disadvantages that
were imposed by leprosy in the past are disappearing and as one contributor
to the project said ‘the time of darkness’ is ending.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/2913 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | McMenamin, Dorothy |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. School of Humanities |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Dorothy McMenamin, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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