De Leprozerie van de missie in Singkawang TMnr 600114522

In the annual account of the Civil Medical Service 1902 is mentioned that since 7 years an establishment of leprosy exists at Singkawang, situated at a distance of 7 ‘paal’  from the town of Singkawang at a small river that ends in a swamp. The 22 patients live in that place that is rather isolated from other houses. They are supplied by the voluntary help of Europese, Chinese and Indigenous leaders. About 1920 this leprosy asylum has been taken into care by the Mission. See Photo Tropenmuseum TMnr 600114522 with the subscription: “De leprozerie van de Missie in Singkawang in 1920.”

From: Karel A. Steenbrink, Catholics in Indonesia,1808-1942 (p. 291): ” With the help of the Controleur, a small village for twenty lepers was built outside the town of Singkawang in 1908, complete with a chapel and dispensary. Attached to the main compound of the mission and its Catholic schools was a farm for cows and vegetables, which made the ‘ecclesiastical village’ more or less self-supporting……… and further: Although Singkawang would remain a major mission post until the late 1930s, it became apparent after some years that this small and nearly totallly Chinese town was not the best position to start a mission among Chinese and Dayaks in Kalimantan.”

” In the 1930s, Singkawang was a department of the Residency Westerafdeeling van Borneo. The main town had the same name. The department was in charge of an assistant-resident and had 4 sub departments: Singkawang, Sambas, Bengkajang and Mampawah. The department has two self-governing Landscapes: Sambas and Mampawah. The sub department Singkawang itself is managed by a Controleur Binnenlands Bestuur and has almost 100,000 inhabitants, among whom 200 Europeans and 38,000 Chinese” (Gonggryp 1934, 1299-1300).

In 2011 the Rumah Sakit Kusta Alverno Singkawang formed the successor hospital with the code 6172070 of the Hospital database kept by the Ministry of Health. It was then a class C hospital with 100 beds, established at the Jalan Gunung Sari no. 70 at Singkawang.  Four medical doctors were connected with the hospital.