Nuns care for leprosy patients on Chinese island

Published: 2006-08-01

TAI KAM, China (CNS) -- Three nuns from the Sisters of Charity of St. Anne have for years medically and spiritually helped more than 60 victims of Hansen's disease, or leprosy, on a small Chinese island. Around the clock, Sisters Omna, Lizzy and Elizabeth from Kerala, India, tend to the people of Tai Kam, located about 50 miles down shore from Macao in China's Guangdong province. They wake each day at 6 a.m. to pray with the patients and attend to their medical care by 8 a.m. Patients come through the clinic operated by the sisters to have their wounds cleaned and dressed. Most have been given shoes manufactured by an American priest who visited Tai Kam a couple of years ago. Hansen's disease, which affects the skin, leaves the patient's extremities with dry skin that forms cracks and infections. Most of the patients at Tai Kam have contracted the disease because it is airborne or because of poor hygiene. Patients are treated with a powerful combination of two and sometimes three drugs; treatment usually lasts six months to a year. During the day, patients go about their own business by gardening, sewing or playing the popular game Mahjong. The average age of the patients on Tai Kam is approximately 65. The oldest man on the island, 94, has been there since his early teens. The youngest is 43 years old. Some have been affected by the disease from as young as age 6.

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