Kikuchi Keifuen Sanatorium
| National Sanatorium Kikuchi Keifuen | |
|---|---|
| Geography | |
| Location | 3790, Koshi, Kumamoto, Japan |
| Organisation | |
| Care system | HealthCare of those who had leprosy |
| Hospital type | National hospital run by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan) |
| Services | |
| Beds | 877(Japanese law on health and medicine in 2008), 412(in-patients) |
| History | |
| Founded | 1909 |
| Links | |
| Website | http://www.hosp.go.jp/~keifuen/ |
| Lists | Hospitals in Japan |
Kikuchi Keifuen Sanatorium or National Sanatorium Kikuchi Keifuen is a sanatorium for leprosy patients or ex-leprosy patients at Kohshi-shi, Kumamoto-ken, Japan founded in 1909. The mean age of residents (ex-patients) is about eighty.
The Japanese Government promulgated the first leprosy prevention law on March 19, 1907 but it did not come into effect until April 1, 1909 because of financial constraints. Under this law, patients who did not have family to support them were forcibly treated in public leprosaria. Japan was divided into five areas, the fifth of which included Nagasaki-ken, Fukuoka Prefecture, Ooita Prefecture, Saga Prefecture, Kumamoto Prefecture, Miyazaki Prefecture and Kagoshima Prefecture. In this area, Kumamoto was selected as the site of the sanatorium.
The two main reasons for the leprosy prevention law were that foreigners visiting Japan after the Meiji Restoration (1868) were very much surprised to find leprosy sufferers wandering at large and claimed that something should be done about it and the Japanese Government was worried about the large number of people with the condition among those who were examined for the draft at age 20.
The number of patients in the sanatorium varied. It depended on the numbers admitted, the number of deaths among residents and the number of patients who escaped or were discharged, Recently they were encouraged to be discharged, but for a long period, the segregation policy which caused leprosy stigma influenced the number of those who left and were readmitted into society.
On July 9, 1940, 157 patients living around Honmyoji temple were forcibly hospitalized and sent to other sanatoriums. This incident was also called the Honmyoji incident. This was considered to be one of the "no leprosy patients in our prefecture" movements.
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