1. If they have insensitive hands and feet, persons affected by the disease frequently harm themselves doing the heavy manual labour and walking the long distances generally associated with low paying and unskilled jobs. Getting treatrnent and caring for injuries also means time off from work and a loss of wages or production.
2. Some of those who are able to produce saleable products are sometimes confronted by buyers who do not want to take their goods because of their fear of possible contammatron.
3. Some persons affected by the disease are unable to get salaried employment because of stigma, and many of those who do get such jobs often hide their disease from their employers and fellow workers and so are constantly burdened with the anxiety of being found out.
4. Many older persons affected by the disease face other economic problems. They cannot depend on the support of their family members to help them through their difficulties, either because they have lost contact with them or their relatives are too poor or unwilling to help. Often, the spouses of person affected by the disease also face similar problems.
5. Another economic problem related to the disease is that there are few vocational training and rehabilitation centers or sheltered workshops in the countries where Hansen's disease is common, and many of those that do exist do not take persons disabled by Hansen's disease.
6. The social service benefits for the people disabled by any cause is flimsy in most of the developing countries where Hansen's disease is found. That means that there is not much economic support from the government. (It is true, however, that in some countries people disabled by Hansen's disease actually get preferential treatment for pensions and institutional care.)
Though the women are less afflicted by leprosy than men, the women socially suffer more than the men because of leprosy. In a society where women always live as a dependent upon somebody in the family, her social life is always threatened with serious consequences and thus she becomes the victim of social ostracism due to leprosy. Special programmes suitable for women should be developed for their social and economic integration.
Persons affected by leprosy as partners：
"Service providers should learn to see people affected by leprosy more as individuals having many dimensions and not just as "case" "patients", "statistics" or "symbols". Service provider may need to fight against their feelings of class superiority, since so often people affected by disease come from the poorest sections of developing societies. They may need to learn to treat persons affected by the disease as equals who have opinions that should be listened to even if the service provider may not agree with all of them. Persons affected by leprosy should be treated with dignity.
Persons affected by leprosy should also change their attitudes and behaviour. Their attitudes and action as "patients" can have a profound effect on the attitudes of others to the disease. In order to promote the cause of socio-economic integration, people affected by the disease should try to overcome their own irrational feelings of shame and come out of their closets. They should be helped to join as partners in the fight against segregation and discrimination by assuming their full rights and responsibilities as citizens of society by refusing to be treated as a special class".
P.K. Gopal, IDEA INDIA, Erode, INDIA
