hankyoreh

"At first, I intended to serve Hansen’s disease sufferers for two years, but after a month, I came to think that I should do this for the whole of my life."

Emma Freisinger, 75, who is this year’s recipient of the Ho-Am Community Service Prize, is an Austrian nurse who has helped Korean sufferers of Hansen’s disease - known commonly as leprosy - all her life.

Freisinger came to Korea after graduating from nursing school in Austria in 1961. She started to serve Hansen’s disease patients at villages where they lived in Goryeong and Uiseong, North Gyeonggi Province. She has spent all her life taking care of sufferers of the disease, who have been treated with contempt in Korea.

"In 1964, a garbage truck came and deposited at the village a Hansen’s sufferer whose body was rotting away. At that time, persons suffering from Hansen’s disease were ill-treated like this."

To a faithful Catholic, however, Hansen’s disease patients are also God’s children, as well. Freisinger devotedly took care of the patients: she ate, drank and lived with them. Even if patients lived far away from her home, she visited them every day, regardless of bad weather. Sometimes she suffered frostbite on her feet while making rounds of patients located away from her home in winter, but she always remained dedicated to her patients.

To treat the patients more scientifically and to help patients without homes settle somewhere, Freisinger established Catholic clinic to treat dermatological diseases in Daegu in 1961 under the sponsorship of German and Austrialian civilians. In 1979, she expanded the clinic to include the "Pieta’s House," which holds intensive care units. She also established the Lily Association, a Korean support group for Hansen’s disease sufferers.

She said she was inspired by a biography of Father Damien of Belgium, who devoted his life in the 19th century to helping Hansen’s disease patients on Molokai Island in Hawaii, an island where Hansen’s disease sufferers were quarantined by the government. Father Damien later succumbed to the illness himself, and was beatified by Pope John Paul II.

These days, Freisinger has a keen interest in helping Chinese Hansen’s disease sufferers.

"The situation in western China is similar to that of South Korea in the 1960s. With the Lily Association as the base, I am going to make efforts to support people who are helping Hansen’s disease patients in China," she said.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]