Confinement and Control in the Middle to Late Twentieth Century

Abstract

The medical advances of the 1950s and 1960s had brought bright prospects for leprosy patients. The positive responses of many Indigenous patients suggested that strict isolation policies would be soon discarded and that they would return to home and families, and resume lives. Similarly, newly diagnosed sufferers might never again be subjected to long-term detention. However, while this scenario played out for most European patients, hardline policies including leprosarium isolation remained in place for Indigenous people until the 1970s and 1980s, due to structural inequities in health care and racialised medical discourse. Whereas medical reforms and high standard facilities were incorporated at East Arm, as Chapter 9 has discussed, governments failed to maintain or upgrade buildings, equipment and basic services at Derby and Fantome Island, im**ing on the health and welfare of the patients. The restrictions and paternalism of continued isolation led to discontent and frustration by an increasingly healthy and socially aware patient population. This chapter examines these consequences of prolonged isolation under these variable conditions and agitation by the religious staff, doctors, and patients for change.