Jongaya leprosy colony
General information (2003)
The Jongaya settlement is situated inside town, bordered by the Hospital Haji, a channel, and other neighbourhoods. When it was founded in 1936, this side was still at the outskirts of a much smaller Makassar, excluded from town, together with the rubbish dump and the jail. The land was donated by some members of the local nobility of Gowa (Karaeng Bontobiraeng) to the Dutch Foundation for the Elimination of Leprosy. In the beginning, the locality was consisting of the settlement with 25 wooden houses, built by the Dutch, and a ward at the side of the later leprosy hospital next to the settlement. In the 1960ties the leprosy hospital was built by a Dutch / Indonesian Leprosy Foundation and in 1980/81 it was handed over to the central government of Indonesia. The leprosy hospital was closed in the beginning of the 1990ties, completely rebuilt, and in 1992 opened as the general Hospital Haji.
The settlement includes 7 hectares of land. About 478 families of people affected by leprosy (mostly wife and husband both affected by leprosy, some mixed couples, their children both affected and not affected) are living here nowadays, with a total sum of 1774 inhabitants, of which about 60% are affected by leprosy. None of the inhabitants is on MDT treatment anymore. Some of the healthy children have married healthy people from outside the settlement (eventhough their parents outside did not always agree).
Jongaya is the responsibility of South Sulawesi province. There is however a dispute about the ownership, as the inhabitants feel that the the Gowa Nobility donated the land to them in 1936, while the government believes the land has been donated to the leprosy foundation, which handed it over to the government (see above). The provincial government provides 15 kg of rice and Rp25.000 to buy vegetables monthly for every inhabitant who already lived in Jongaya before 1992 and is affected by leprosy (about 400 people). Those who moved to the settlement after the closure of the leprosy hospital in 1992 are not entitled to receive this donation. Compared to the second leprosy settlement in Makassar, “Km 10”, which is under the administration of the city of Makassar, the donation for Jongaya is much more generous. At the time of the visit there were additional donations of rice, vegetable oil and baby food for the poorer inhabitants of Jongaya by US-Aid for a duration of six month.
Medical services
Before the leprosy hospital in Jongaya was closed in the beginning of the 1990ties, the medical care for the inhabitants of Jongaya was quite good. This of course has not always been the case: until the mid 50ties the only treatment was a weekly injection for the leprosy patients in the ward and the settlement. No medical doctor served in the ward; it was run only by nurses. In about 1954 the first doctor, Dr Go, was engaged, but he did not want to touch the patients, he only had a look when examining them. In the 60ties, with the building of the leprosy hospital, medication with Diason began, which was substituted in the 70ties by DDS under the Dutch Dr Rudgers. Until the 1990ties, a second ward was maintained inside the settlement, where (ex-) leprosy patients were provided with health care, food and a place to sleep. This building still exists and is inhabited, but no help is provided anymore since the leprosy hospital has been closed. Nowadays, a nurse from the clinic for skin diseases visits Jongaya once a week for basic health care for the people affected by leprosy. For general health problems, the inhabitants normally go to one of the health centres, where they are treated well and have never been rejected. For problems related to leprosy they directly go to the Daya leprosy hospital. Based on bad experiences with the staff of the hospital Haji, they do not use this facility any more, although it is located only 50 meters from the settlement.
