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Draft bill aims to preserve sanatorium

The result of the first round of legislative cross-party negotiations yesterday on a draft bill designed to compensate leprosy patients who were mistreated when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government was in power was welcomed by Losheng Sanatorium preservationists.

The negotiated draft stipulates that the Losheng Sanatorium be preserved for its patients.

The draft bill obliges the nation to safeguard the rights of patients who live in the sanatorium and to prevent the eviction of residents from the leprosarium.

Tearing down the sanatorium would not be an option.

Leprosy patients and preservationists will constitute the majority of a new committee responsible for the protection of leprosy patients' human rights, the draft bill stipulates.

The committee will also be put in charge of the compensation for mistreated leprosy patients.

The negotiation of the draft bill, however, was not completed yesterday, leaving the amount of national compensation to be paid to patients undecided.

A final version of the bill will need to be endorsed by all parties' caucus whips before being put to the legislature for a second reading.

Six different versions of the draft bill were recently proposed by various parties. The proposals were designed to offer protection and compensation to leprosy patients who were quarantined by the government in 1929 because leprosy was at the time believed to be easily contagious and incurable. The patients were effectively quarantined for life.

Freedom of movement for leprosy sufferers has only been permitted since the 1950s.

The preservation of Losheng recently sparked conflict between the leprosarium's residents and supporters and the Taipei County Government, which had given residents at the sanatorium until April 16 to move out.

In order to build a maintenance facility for the extended mass rapid transit (MRT) system, the government had decided to move residents at the sanatorium to a newly built home nearby and demolish most of the buildings at Losheng.

About 10 representatives from the Youth Alliance for Losheng were allowed to attend the closed-door negotiations yesterday, according to a source present at the meeting who wished to remain anonymous.

The source said that KMT Legislator Tsai Chia-fu (蔡家福), who supports the MRT construction, questioned whether the legislature could overrule the administrative authority of the Taipei County Government.
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