MAHELERECEN

Madurai is an ancient city in India. It is known as the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and located on the riverbank of ‘Vaigai’. The city has a population of 11 lakhs located within 147 sq km. The floating population comes to around 4 to 5 lakhs. Every day pilgrims and businessmen are coming to Madurai. It has many textile industries, spinning mills like Madura coats, automobile industries like T.V.S, Fenner India Ltd. There are also numerous small-scale industries. 

The Madurai city population is situated in a circular area. Residential people are living in thickly populated areas having less ventilation and surrounded by slum areas. Due to which it leads to unhygienic situations. But no one raises their concerns as they are busy earning a livelihood.

There are about 100s of voluntary organizations situated within the city. These organizations are engaging in providing institutional care to children, women, and aged infirm or people with disabilities. It is evident from the statistical data that no voluntary institution is providing professional service for leprosy patients.

 Leprosy affected people face difficulties to travel from Madurai to more than 60 km for their disability corrections and hospitalization. As their income is not sufficient to go to distant places to treat their recurrent disturbances of the diseases.

When we move around the city we can find more untreated early non-infectious and infectious leprosy-affected people. It shows that patients are not taking any care about their disease. The other reason might be poor awareness regarding the seriousness of leprosy.   

There is a direct necessity for providing a package of professional services with a view of preventing leprosy in Madurai and its surrounding places. Including a commitment to promote health education on leprosy, organize treatment, rehabilitation services,  and also fulfillment and have a better implementation of programs. We established the ‘Madurai Health and Leprosy Relief Centre’ in the Madurai district. It will serve as a ‘Referral Centre’. it was registered on 09^th August 1991.