Sitanala to stop ex-lepers' rations

TANGERANG: Sitanala Hospital deputy director Dr. JP Handoko Soewono said the hospital had decided to stop providing monthly rice rations to former leprosy patients from December.

"We operate as a hospital not as a social institution to distribute handouts. That's why we decided to stop the rations," he told The Jakarta Post here on Friday.

He said that the ration used to consist of a number of staple foods, including rice, cooking oil, milk, and instant noodles.

But since 1997, when the hospital was opened to the public, it has offered reduced rations of just 10 kg of rice per month for each selected former patient.

To qualify for assistance, the selected former patients, who number only about 100, must receive a monthly income of less than Rp 200,000 (US$21.01). Those who receive more than this amount per month are excluded from the handouts.

There are about 1,000 former leprosy patients who mostly live in a two hectare landsite called Serba Guna ex-leper complex behind the hospital.

Handoko said that the former patients were called ex-lepers because they had passed a supervision period of more than one year, while those who had been under hospital supervision for between six months and a year were described as leper patients. -JP