A priest's fight against leprosy

By M. Malleswara Rao

HYDERABAD, APRIL 14. His has been a crusade against the most "dreadful" of the diseases - leprosy - from the time he landed on Indian soil, 34 years ago. The battle has been won. This Catholic priest from Italy has so far liberated 30,000 people from the ailment, at least a half of them full-blown cases, all in Nalgonda district. Now, aged 70, Rev.Fr. Luigi Pezzoni, is worried about the future after his death of the chain of institutions he had built single-handedly all these years ignoring his health.

The habitation of leprosy patients which he set up on the outskirts on a 50-acre land, today lies in the town following rapid urban growth and it consists of a 200-bed hospital equipped with most modern facilities, a home for the aged to take care of the abandoned but cured patients, a school with 450 students on the rolls, all children of leprosy patients, a rehabilitation centre which provides gainful employment to the "liberated" ones such as dairying and gardening, and a number of related infrastructure facilities. Despite belonging to the PIME religious order, he worked more or less independently all these years and has offered to take over the "kingdom of love" he had nurtured and continue the service for ever.

Fr. Luigi comes from a family of social activists like the elder "Pezzoni", his uncle and a missionary who built "Pezzonipet" in Vijayawada. While two of his brothers and all three sisters took to religious life, he had done medicine in the Milan University additionally and this helped him to carry on his mission. He opted "leprosy patients" as his vocation as, "they are the most cursed and scourged" of the humanity. To begin with, he undertook a survey in Nalgonda district, employing a handful of village boys, and he was "appalled", as he says, that nearly 20,000 people were afflicted with the disease and were leading a sub- human life.

The Father collected all of them by going round the villages and put them under a makeshift shelter for treatment which later blossomed into one of the biggest hospitals of its type in this part of the world. The sisters wash their wounds and give them drugs and food while the institution, now known as "Leprosy Health Centre" enables them to lead a dignified life after cure, with a rehabilitation package, which includes stitching or even cultivation. The centre is a self-contained township with its own fields, production centres, clinics for the out-patients, schools, playgrounds and even an auditorium. About 200 permanent houses have been constructed for the fully cured patients who were brought together in a wedlock.

Today, the leprosy patients bow down in reverence as and when they sight the hermit with a beard. The people living in the neighbouring colonies who earlier resisted him not knowing that leprosy is not contagious, treat him reverentially. But "some elements" within the church, according to Mr. K. Thomas Chowdary, worked against the Father, forcing him to leave the country.

However, the Father was invited back to the country in 1978 to inaugurate an extension building of the centre and then a "miracle happened". Speaking to this correspondent recently, Pezzoni said the Collector and the Superintendent of Police who came for the function, were fully appreciative of his work, touched by the patients on the beds and the ongoing activities. Saying they wanted him back to sustain the work, they arranged for a visa the next day authorising him to continue at the place as a doctor. "It was a Hindu Collector and a Muslim SP who brought me back to my people", he said.

Forty-year-old I. Mariamma, an SC from Erukalapdu, who was cured from disease stands at the church entrance in a relaxed manner, watching her two sons playing. Mr. K. Abraham, a son of yet another "freed" patient, is a graduate, and he wants to continue Pezzoni's mission as wished by his father who died by joining the missionary order. Mrs. Chaganti Nagalakshmi who has been cured, works now as a daily wage earner at Suryapet with her husband, who had accepted her after treatment at the centre. But, Pezzoni is unrelenting. It is his dream to continue the work till his death.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Four killed as train rams tractor
Next     : HC sets aside NIMS' appointment