Health chief criticized for leprosy remarks

HEALTH Secretary Enrique Ona has received flak for his statement last week blaming religion for the stigma that help spread leprosy in the country.

“For hundreds of years the Church was the only one preaching for compassion on the lepers. For hundreds of years the Church was the only institution caring for the lepers. And along comes the health secretary blaming religion for spreading leprosy stigma,” Fr. Rey V. Culaba, CSsR, a priest based in San Francisco, said Friday in an email to Cathnews Philippines.

Father Culaba said Ona must be trying to justify his department’s failure in eradicating leprosy in the country and was using the Church and religion as scapegoat.

“When was the last time Secretary Ona was in church listening to a sermon stigmatizing leprosy?

“For no priest in his right mind would preach this, not even on a bad nothing-to-preach-about day. For Compassion for the Leper comes from the Gospel and from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself,” the priest said.

In a report by Inquirer.Net, Ona said the stigma of leprosy was still very obvious in the Philippines particularly from the pulpit.

“There is always a time where leprosy is talked about in sermons… in the church. We have to do something about that,” Ona was quoted as saying at a press conference with top officials of the World Health Organization-Western Pacific Region.

Experts from WHO and leprosy control program managers from the region gathered last week to discuss new global leprosy control strategy, review the latest epidemiological data and help boost member countries’ capacity to control the disease.

“Was [Ona] deflecting the attention of the WHO officials from his own department’s lack of action? Were there funds from WHO and other international agencies to be used for the eradication of leprosy involved that he had to account for?” Father Culaba asked.