Greeting from the Superintendent

Welcome to Komyoen's website!

Kentaro Hatano, M.D.

Oku-komyoen is one of Japan's 13 national sanatoriums for people who had suffered from Hansen's disease.

Those who currently live in Oku-komyoen do not suffer from the disease, in fact not a single person in the sanatorium is positive on medical tests for the bacteria causing Hansen's disease. They have all been healed and are recuperating. But the sanatorium exists because our patients, despite being cured, still deal with the disease's after effects or issues arising from their age (the average age being around 82)

Nowadays Hansen's disease has become completely curable by early detection and proper treatment. In fact, more than eighty percent of those who contract Hansen's disease in developing countries are cured without after effects. While those who do suffer from after effects only deal with mild symptoms. However most of our patients developed the disease before effective anti-leprosy medication was developed and so they must deal with handicaps they acquired before the disease could be treated.

Please imagine if you will what it would be like to suffer from the disease. One of the problems faced by Hansen's disease patients is vision impairment. Normally if you have impaired vision you might rely upon the sensation in your hands and toes to help you during daily life, like using a walking stick, or feeling around a table to find something you need. This is already a challenge, but many of those in our sanatorium who have lost their eye sight have also lost the sensation in their hands and toes. Therefore even simple daily chores require great effort. As such, for those who have lived in a sanatorium for many decades returning to society takes great courage while many find social integration nearly impossible.

Another reason that the sanatorium exists, in a way, is as atonement for Japan's former segregation policy. This policy was imposed for eighty-nine years from 1907 until 1996 when it was abolished. For those placed in the sanatoriums it was as if they were given a life sentence. Once I asked a pupil who had come with his Elementary school on one of our facility tours, "What would you think of a person if he said, 'Why have you caught a cold?! It's disgraceful!' And he replied, "I'd think he's crazy!" I'd say that child was correct and yet the leprosy segregation policy was imposing a similar judgment, but on a national scale, for 86 years.

To be fair, the forced isolation policy was effective, but only for some particular cases of the infectious disease which have a high mortality rate and only during short periods of time. Even allowing for this, the main issue remains that segregation continued after the treatment for Hansen's disease was found and it became clear that the disease does not transmit easily. Even after being segregated much of the work needed to run the sanatorium was forced on the people admitted there. You might compare it to Jewish life in ghettos under the Nazi government. The patients were not even permitted to have babies! For those who have spent much of their lives in the sanatoriums under such conditions it is impossible to get back what they have lost. Therefore, the sanatorium exists as part of our nation's responsibility to those who have suffered. We who work as staff continue to do our best hoping that people in the sanatorium may live a happier life now, even if we can only help a little.

If anyone who is reading this is interested in Oku-Komyoen, we would love to have you visit us. You can contact the general affairs office for one of our facility tours, a house visit or an exchange program. We do ask that you contact our office beforehand so that appropriate preparations can be made and so that you will be able to have the most fulfilling time possible. Human rights are very important and yet at the same time a very difficult subject. If you visit us we know that you will learn a lot from the history of our institution and the experience gained from the struggle of those who live here.

Thank you for your time.