(Continued from here)
Monday, June 21
I started off the day today by going to the ALERT hospital for lepers. Some of the missionaries took me out there. It was really amazing and touching to see how many people are still affected by leprosy. As soon as they diagnose it, they get treatment and are no longer contagious, but much of the time, the damage continues. It affects nerves and in fact, the first sign many times is an area of skin that has no feeling. Kind of like with diabetes, it can really affect the feet and hands, with loss of sensation, then subsequent damage, potential gangrene and frequently, loss of finger and/or toes and sometimes amputations are required.
I was shown me all over the hospital, from the administrative assistant’s office where he hands out shoes with special inserts (purchased by LDS Charities for 50 birr each, they charge the patients 10 birr each), to the prosthetics lab, to the handicraft area. The hospital used to be run by a “foreigner” who got donations to keep it going. They were very successful. They had satellite clinics, more staff, people who went and searched for leprosy patients in the early stages and more. For some reason, the government thought they should be in charge – maybe it “looked good”, who knows, but they took over, fired the international director, slashed salaries and eliminated most programs. Ya know, I surely believe that privatization is a REALLY good thing! Once again, it is too bad that the needs of the people come after pride and ego.
There is now a “drug cocktail” to treat the leprosy bacteria that the patients “only” have to take for a year to 18 months. When they first came up with a treatment, it was something they had to do the rest of their lives. Then, even when I was in nursing school 20 years ago, it was something like a 20-yr course of treatment. The administrator working with us said that when they were treating with only one drug, the bacteria were building resistance to it, but now with the combo approach they are not seeing that and they’ve been able to shorten the course considerably.
I felt as if I could have been in Biblical days – leprosy is so foreign to us in the States, yet it is a fact of life here. I saw people with open sores, ones who have had amputations, ones whose fingers were gnarled into “leprosy hands” and then those for whom it had gone farther and whose fingers were gone, or whose toes were gone – or both.
They had quite a few people – mostly women – working on crafts right there. They were doing the embroidery for traditional clothing, table cloths, table runners, etc. The work is amazing. I even watched them weave the cloth! It reminded me of the Pioneer village where we volunteered a couple of years ago – hand looms, complete with shuttle, drop spindles, hand-woven rugs and just a touch more in the future, treadle sewing machines. They sell the things they make in the hospital gift shop to help cover operating costs, etc. One very friendly older gentleman had lost all his fingers and toes and part of his nose. He was weaving doormats and grinned for the camera. Amazing. We got quite a few things for gifts. 
What a wonderful hospital, doing wonderful things.
