Dedicating his life to helping lepers

Multa Fidrus Contributor, Tangerang

Disgusting. That is the comment that most people make when they see lepers being treated at hospitals and recovered lepers begging in the streets or other public places.

This comment is not without reason, since dry skin, large open sores and blood seeping from knuckles, wrists or amputated legs are a common sight in lepers or former lepers.

But JP Handoko Suwono, deputy director of the Sitanala Leprosy Hospital in Tangerang municipality, who has spent 27 years of his life in helping poor leprosy patients, feels differently.

Handoko said he neither feels fear nor disgust when handling patients, even though he is in direct, daily contact with them at the hospital.

When The Jakarta Post arrived at his small, simply furnished office at the country's largest leprosarium on Jl. Dr. Sitanala, Neglasari district, Tangerang municipality, on Monday, Handoko was observed smoking, hard at work designing at a computer a system for bandaging the amputated limbs of lepers.

This was but one small example of his endless dedication to helping and caring for the tens of thousands of leprosy patients treated successfully at the hospital since he began working there in 1984.

"I will also use this scheme to teach new doctors here how to treat and bandage the amputated limbs of lepers," he told the Post.

Handoko understands that leprosy is not a frightening disease or a curse, as many people think.

"It's been my fate to be with lepers since I graduated from medical school in Surabaya and started working as a medical doctor at a small private hospital in Kediri, East Java," he said.

His lengthy experience in dealing with lepers has left a deep impression on him. He realizes that most lepers know little about how to recover from the disease. Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium leprae that mostly attacks human skin and nerves.

He said that leprosy patients needed special treatment because they were not like other patients who went to the hospital for treatment and were willing to pay whatever it cost for a cure.

"When doctors suggested that their hands or legs be amputated, most patients here even asked how much they would be paid for the amputated parts," he said.

This showed, he said, that leprosy patients had no awareness about the possibility of recovering from the disease at all.

Handoko also tried to organize some training to help recovered lepers learn the skills they would need to survive after they had left the hospital, but all his efforts ended in failure.

In cooperation with the ministries of transmigration and home affairs, he once tried to send a number of former leper couples to transmigration areas in South Sumatra and Rangkas Bitung in West Java, but they returned to the hospital after six months.

"I don't really understand why it is so hard to counsel ex- lepers," he said while holding his forehead and laughing.

However, the reduction in the number of lepers from one million in the early 1980s to 14,000 in 2004 has meant that leprosy is no longer a big problem for the central government.

"Indonesia used to be the third-most endemic country for leprosy in the world after India and Brazil, but now we are fourth after India, Brazil and Myanmar," he said.

He said progress in dealing with leprosy in the country had prompted the government to plan to develop Sitanala hospital as a center for emergency treatment while also maintaining its function as a leprosy rehabilitation center.

Handoko was the only medical doctor assigned to lead a general hospital, a leprosy hospital and seven public health clinics on the island of Lembata, East Flores regency, East Nusa Tenggara province, soon after he was accepted as a medical doctor by the Ministry of Health through a presidential assistance program in 1980.

Although he was assigned to an isolated island where everyday life was tough, Handoko encountered no difficulty in interacting with the locals there, since residents had been used to modern medical treatment introduced by the Portuguese, who once colonized the island.

The father of 12-year-old Rahandani, from his marriage to Ratna Steny Suwono in 1987, was born in 1952 in Surabaya. He lived there until he graduated from Airlangga University medical school in 1978.

Since his late father, Suwono, was only a tire repairman, Handoko worked as a freelance photographer to help finance his medical studies.

He was transferred to Sitanala hospital in Tangerang, one of three government leprosy hospitals in the country besides Sungai Kundur Hospital in South Sumatra and Daya Hospital in Makassar, South Sulawesi, from Lembata island in 1984.

Some seven hectares of Sitanala Hospital's total 54 hectares has been occupied by recovered lepers who refuse to return home, and live there with their families. They have created a village of their own, known as the Serba Guna Complex, behind the hospital.

Many of them live by begging on the streets and public places, some live by farming the hospital's open land and others enjoy a successful life by running a variety of businesses.

Handoko said, however, that life for former lepers in the complex was an illusion, because they lived in a community that had already accepted them.

"If we want to help former lepers to survive with the skills they already posses, we must also guide community members around them. This is what the government never did. Former lepers have high hopes for progress but the outside community always reject them," he said.

He said the community gave no space for former lepers to live side by side with other members of the community. Leprosy is contagious but the likelihood of contracting it is small. Only those who suffer malnutrition while in their mothers' womb are likely to contract the disease.

"Only acceptance by society in general can build up the self- confidence of former lepers. If they are given an opportunity to compete with others, they will seize it and not be left as street beggars, said Handoko, who promised to help lepers until he retired.

Foto: Handoko koleksi pribadi