“Don’t Tell My Husband I Have Leprosy”: Social Stigma Silences Marshall Islands’ Women

Meretha Pierson, a nurse in the leprosy clinic of Majuro, Marshall Islands, shows the medication to cure leprosy that are provided for free. Credit: Stella Paul/IPSBy Stella PaulMAJURO, Mar 28 2019 (IPS) Meretha Pierson has been a nurse for the past seven years, working in the government-run leprosy clinic in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands. Her patients come in all ages, from different economic backgrounds and different professions. But, aside from their diagnosis, they all have something else in common: everyone wants to keep their illness a secret. “Everyone requests me not to tell their neighbours. But women who are young, request me to not inform even their spouses. ‘Please don’t tell my husband,’ they say.  Sometimes, such a request is really hard to keep,” Pierson tells IPS. Unwanted labels There is a reason why Pierson, one of the handful of trained health workers who can detect a case of leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, can’t always promise full confidentiality to her patients. Marshall Islands is believed to have 50 to 80 new cases of leprosy every year – a number that is very big for a population of only 60,000. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), if more than 1 in every 10,000 people are affected by leprosy, then it should be considered as a disease that has not been eliminated. Marshall Islands, as classified by the WHO, is therefore far from eliminating the disease. But it is a classification that the go...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Aid Development & Aid Editors' Choice Featured Gender Headlines Health Human Rights TerraViva United Nations Women's Health Hansen's disease leprosy Marshall Islands Nippon Foundation Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation (SMHF) Source Type: news