Treatment Of Lepers

Fierce Argument in Hawaii

From Our Own Correspondent (CONTROVERSY, at times becoming J acrimonious, is agitating Hawaii re garding the future site of the well known Molokai leper settlement.

Central disputants in the affair are Lawrence Judd, former Governor of

Hawaii and at present Provisional Director of Territorial Hospitals and Settlements, and Dr. Norman Sloan, Medical Director of the Molokai settle ment.

The former advocates abandonment of the present site and removal of the patients to a new location on the island of Oahu, more accessible to Honolulu. Dr.

Sloan and some 70 per cent, of the settle ment staff are unalterably opposed to such a plan, and are ready to resign should it be put into effect.

The settlement is now located on a mountain-enclosed promontory at Kalau papa, on the island of Molokai. The lepers of the Territory, although number ing some thousands of persons half-a century ago, are now, owing to segrega tion and improved medical treatment, re duced to a bare 300.

Many of the patients at Kalaupapa own their own homes, automobiles, stores and radios. Possessing a band, athletic clubs and such organisations, they lead the care-free existence of a protected village community, restricted only in their movement to the spacious district in which they are confined.

A special Legislature committee which visited Kalaupapa recently heard the patients express themselves overwhelm ingly in favour of remaining at Kalau papa, with Dr. Sloan as Director.

Dr. Sloan reported that the basic dif ference between Mr. Judd and himself was their conflict of opinion regarding Hansen’s Disease patients. Mr. Judd ad vocated lessening segregation, moving patients to Oahu and eventually closing Kalaupapa, while Dr. Sloan said he be lieved in treating Hansen’s Disease as a contagious malady.

“I feel I can no longer work with a man who is not a doctor himself but is trying to spread what I regard as false views about the contagiousness of lep rosy,” said Dr. Sloan.