People suffering from leprosy have faced societal ostracism for many years. The disease which causes permanent skin, nerves, limbs and eyes makes them an easy target for forced segregations and quarantines. Their families and loved ones have often given up on them fearing the same fate.
Likewise, the leprosy patients in the country have suffered similar stigmatisation. But a group of them have found a place to call home at Riserboo in Trashigang Dzongkhag. Halfway Home has been a shelter for many of the patients.
In the woods, below Riserboo hospital, a group of leprosy patients have formed a small community. The government had helped them built the houses.
Jigme Namgay, 69, from Monggar is one of the patients living in Halfway Home. He has been living in the community for 19 years. He said he caught the disease when he was just a child. “I was 10 years old when I was first infected. I was treated at home which helped my condition,” he said. Years later, he was hit hard by the disease and had to go for a treatment to Guwahati in India. He said his condition further deteriorated and in 1993 he was admitted in Riserboo hospital.
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Although the disease crippled him, his wife did not leave him. Tshering Subba has been living in the community, helping her husband. “I cannot bear to live my husband alone,” she says. “He faces many problems. I have to be there to take him out and help him get back inside. My only daughter is living with her husband and hardly comes to visit.” She added that it is difficult to make ends meet as she is not employed and have to take care of her husband full time. “The authority says no extra money or rations for me as I am not a patient like him.”
Thonglay, 68, is another patient who has been living in the community for last four years. He was also infected when was just eight years old. Both his legs have been amputated. He never married. “Once I realised the severity of the disease, I never got over the shame, pain and hurt,” he said. He now walks with the help of artificial legs. “I am worried what I will do once I grow old.”
They have little or no connect with the outside world. But they have each other in the place they call their own, a solace called Halfway Home.
