Ex-lepers want to be resettled

Ex-lepers want to be resettled

TANGERANG, West Java: Hundreds of former lepers at the Sitanala Leprosy Hospital want to be resettled to the outer islands under the state-sponsored transmigration program.

Currently, the hospital is housing about 700 ex-leprosy patients. They live quarantined in a five-hectare area near the hospital.

"The complex is overcrowded and looks like slum housing," said a spokesman for the hospital, N. Suratman, to the Antara news agency.

He said that the area was overcrowded and would pose serious social problems unless the government resettled them somewhere else.

He said that most of leprosy patients admitted to the hospital refuse to return to their families after they recover because they are ashamed of their physical deformities.(pan)