LEPER STATION STAFF

Southland Times, Issue 19508, 6 May 1922, Page 11

LEPER STATION STAFF

ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH SERVICES A NEEDLESS APPREHENSION (Special to the Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, May 2. The action of a. number of attendants at the leper station on Quail Island in regularly attending church services at Char’ teris Bay has occasioned a certain amount of alarm among the residents of the Bay. They feel that they are being needlessly exposed to danger of contracting the dreadful disease, and it is stated that for this reason some residents do not attend the services. A Star reporter brought the matter to the notice of Dr Telford, medical officer of health, to-day, and asked him if there were any grounds for alarm. “There is not the slightest occasion for any alarm to be expressed,” he replied. The degree of infectivity with leprosy was comparatively slight, and it was only by contact Tuberculosis, on the other hand, was a much more contagious disease, and if it was as rare as leprosy the same precautions would be taken to prevent its spread as were now taken with leprosy. As for the attendants going to church services, he did not think there was any need for him to object to such action. With leprosy there was no such thing as a carrier. A person either had the disease or did not have it, and the attendants did not come into personal contact with the patients. In connection with the matter it should be explained that the lepers live on a separate part of the Island from the attendants, and are divided by a wire fence. The lepers have their own dishes, and when requiring food they simply bring these dishes to the fence and the food is placed in them. The patients and the attendants seldom get nearer to each other , than a distance of about twelve feet.