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Leprosy hospital's closure means new start for patients
April 24, 1998
Leprosy is now easily controllable with drugs
Web posted at: 10:56 p.m. EDT (0256 GMT)From Correspondent Charles Zewe
CARVILLE, Louisiana (CNN) -- For the last 104 years, patients suffering from leprosy have been living in the isolation of the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Carville, Louisiana.
But now only about 6,000 people in the United States suffer from Hansen's disease, as leprosy is more formally known, and drugs make the malady easily controllable. So the federal government is closing Carville and a similar center on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
Correspondent Charles Zewe visits one of the last long-term care facilities for leprosy, or Hansen's disease, in the United StatesPerhaps as early as this fall, the state of Louisiana is expected to turn the Carville hospital into a school for juvenile delinquents. The 124 patients, most of whom have lived here for most of their lives, can either transfer to another long-term care facility or go out on their own with free medical care and a $33,000 annual stipend.
Rachel Pendleton, 68, who came to Carville a half-century ago, welcomes the chance to strike out on her own.
"I want to go out and live a normal life," she says. "I spent the best years of my life in here. I do not wish to spend the last years of my life in this place."
Pendleton was just 14 when mysterious, numb lumps appeared on her legs. When state health workers came to her home in Corpus Christi, Texas, to take her away, her parents weren't even allowed to hug her good-bye.
Many of those sent to Carville changed their names to spare their families embarrassment. They couldn't vote, marry or commingle with the opposite sex.
The Public Health Service Hospital in Carville "The bottom seems to fall out, and you know darn well you've passed through a door that you're never going to come back out of," says Johnny Harmon, a Carville patient who was struck with Hansen's disease in 1935.
"I'd get so lonesome," he says. "A nice-looking girl and I'd get to messing around. I'd have a date with them, and what the hell [are] you going to do, you know? You can't ask that girl to marry you. You've got leprosy."
A frightful disease since biblical times, leprosy is caused by a strain of bacteria. It can kill nerves, ulcerate skin and dissolve bones, but, with the advent of antibiotics, can be controlled on a outpatient basis.
Related stories:
- FDA panel recommends approval of thalidomide - September 5, 1997
- Thalidomide's comeback sparks emotional debate - September 4, 1997
- Brazil launches media campaign to fight leprosy - October 21, 1996
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