A HOSPITAL chaplain says he has returned “encouraged” and “inspired” after visiting two leprosy hospitals in India.

The Rev Gary Kennedy, chaplain at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – which runs Fairfield Hospital in Bury and North Manchester General Hospital – travelled to West Bengal to witness the effects of the devastating disease.

Mr Kennedy was inspired to go to the subcontinent after meeting a team from The Leprosy Mission at Greenbelt Christian arts festival, in Northamptonshire, in August last year.

The 54 year-old dad-of-three said: “My time in India was really so inspiring and I am planning to give talks in churches across the Greater Manchester area to tell people all about what I have seen.

“It really was so encouraging. From previous experience, I was expecting to see people in hospital debilitated by leprosy.

“And whilst leprosy is desperately disabling, if left untreated, and while there is still so much stigma surrounding the disease, there was also so much joy and hope, because it can be treated effectively if caught early.”

Mr Kennedy, who lives in Rawtenstall, is no stranger to working with those

living in poverty, both in his work with Church Action on Poverty and having

previously travelled to Nepal with International Nepal Fellowship.

He has also worked with the homeless in the UK and Poland and with orphans in Bulgaria.

He added: “I met a beautiful young women who had lost her fingers and toes

as a result of leprosy.

“She had the most harrowing story of being outcast by her family because she had leprosy.

“They had actually set fire to her and chased her out of her home with knives and yet, having found leprosy hospital, in Purulia, she discovered an incredible creativity within her, and could even sew despite having no fingers.

“Nothing would deter her. She said she wanted to sell her creations, so I asked to buy a rug that she had made and she was overjoyed that she could produce something that I would want.”

Mr Kennedy said his job had helped prepare him to meet leprosy patients in

India.

“My work brings me into contact with HIV patients, who years ago also had the stigma which surrounds leprosy in India today,” he said.

“People become so marginalised. The Leprosy Mission has mercy homes for

older people who cannot look after themselves.

“They are homes for people who have faced terrible rejection.

“It’s not luxurious accommodation, but they have people who care amazingly for them, and they do tasks such as gardening, if they can, which gives them some self-worth and makes them feel valued.

“We find God everywhere – there isn’t a place where God isn’t. I have come back from India feeling like the people I have met have blessed me.

“I hope that in telling their stories I might also be some kind of blessing to them.”

For more information about leprosy go to www.leprosymission.org.uk