Visitor privileges returned to Hawaii’s Kalaupapa after COVID-19 ban
The Hawaii Department of Health has reinstated visiting privileges to former Hansen’s disease patients and staff residing in Kalaupapa who have been prohibited from seeing family and friends for more than two years during the pandemic.
The state imposed much stricter restrictions on the isolated Molokai peninsula than enacted in the rest of the state, leading some patients to beg for hugs even as much of the rest of the world was accepting COVID-19 as a manageable part. of everyday life. Some patients suffering from memory loss due to old age sometimes get confused about living in the coronavirus lockdown with previous experiences of being rejected by the world as leprosy patients.
But the state recently relaxed its general no-visitor policy enacted in March 2020. Starting in November, Kalaupapa residents can request approval for sponsored visits from up to six vaccinated guests at a time, the health department said. The total number of visitors in the settlement is capped at 25.
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Patients and staff are thrilled to restore a bit of normalcy to their lives, according to Miki’ala Pescaia, a ranger at Kalaupapa National Historical Park.
“It’s the best medicine for us,” said Meli Watanuki, 88, a former Hansen’s disease patient who recently enjoyed visiting friends from Honolulu for the first time in three years.
Social distancing and masking restrictions remain
The coronavirus pandemic marked the second time former Kalaupapa patients had been forced into self-isolation due to rampant disease. But where they were once brutally separated from the rest of society for the protection of others, they have been isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic for their own protection.
Other pandemic rules have also been eased on the 10,700-acre peninsula, which is incorporated as Kalawao County and is administered by the health department.
Masks can now be removed outdoors as long as people maintain a 6-foot distance from each other. But masks are still required indoors and indoor gatherings are still capped at five people.
With the approval of the health department, certain outdoor activities and gatherings of more than five people have also resumed on a case-by-case basis. There will be a Christmas party and door-to-door caroling this month.
Hawaii Department of Health spokeswoman Kaitlin Arita-Chang said the department’s priority is protecting high-risk members of the Kalaupapa community from COVID-19. None of the former patients residing in the settlement have contracted the disease.
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‘I’m so happy this is my home’
Four patients in their 80s and 90s remain in Kalaupapa out of the many former Hansen’s disease patients who chose to continue living on the rugged peninsula despite the repeal of Hawaii’s law in 1969 that had exiled them there to death. An estimated 8,000 people affected by the disease were banished there from 1866 to 1969.
The last living patients reside in the settlement with the support of the health department, which provides them with furnished houses, nursing staff and stipends for food and clothing.
Watanuki was 18 years old when he was diagnosed with Hansen’s disease in 1952 in his native American Samoa. Thinking he was over the disease, he moved to Honolulu in 1960. But the signs of the disease returned in 1964. After undergoing treatment, he decided to move to Kalaupapa in 1969.
“I’m so happy that this is my home,” he told Civil Beat in an interview this week.
Today, Watanuki begins his mornings at church before going to work at the Kalawao store. In the afternoon, she cleans and weeds part-time for the National Park Service at St. Philomena Church in the original Kalawao settlement area.
She is animated by faith in God and reverence for Saints Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope, who dedicated their lives to caring for Hansen’s disease patients in Kalaupapa despite the risks to their own health.
The pandemic restrictions have been difficult, Watanuki said, but he understands that the strict controls imposed by the state are meant for his protection.
When will the tours come back?
Although personal visits have resumed, public visits remain closed. As the co-owner of Saints Damien and Marianne Cope Molokai Tours, Watanuki said she is looking forward to the return of tourism. She was told by health department administrators that tours are expected to start again in 2023, she said.
Watanuki noted that there have been numerous federal employees who have traveled from the mainland to work in Kalaupapa in recent months.
“Because it’s different?” she asked, adding that tourists come in small numbers and leave after just a few hours, while federal workers typically stay on the peninsula for weeks or months.
Sister Alicia Damien Lau, a Catholic nun who resides in Kalaupapa, said public tours remain closed due to concerns that visitors from other locations could spread the virus.
“We don’t want people that nobody knows to come to Kalaupapa,” he said. “So it’s strict. But it is good. It is to protect our kupuna”.
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Next week, for the first time in three years, the Kalaupapa Lions Club will resume its annual Christmas party with some normality. There will be food, giveaways and a chance to win a ukulele.
The party will take place outdoors, a far less stringent pandemic precaution than those imposed at the event last year, when partygoers could only hop in a vehicle to pick up gifts and a meal to take home to enjoy in solitude. .
The health department also approved Christmas carols for patients and staff.
This story was published in association with the Honolulu Civil Beat, a nonprofit newsroom that conducts investigative and watchdog journalism related to the state of Hawaii.