WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's Disease, was first recorded in Western Australia in
1889. In 1908, the first cases were diagnosed in the Kimberley. The Asian pearlers
may have been the conduit for the introduction of the disease into this part of
Australia, or it may have been brought in by people moving from the Northern
Territory into the region (Davidson 1978; Jebb 2009 unpublished manuscript).
Isolation or quarantine facilities known as lazarets were established on a number of
islands off the Western Australian coast including Dorre, Bernier, Bezout and
Cossack, where Aboriginal people suspected of carrying venereal disease or leprosy
were sent (Jebb and Allbrook 2009). Australia went against international trends by
establishing rather than phasing out, total isolation hospitals for contagious disease
sufferers during the first decades of the twentieth century (Bashford and Nugent 2002;
Wokaunn 2006).
From about 1913, Aboriginal sufferers of the disease were sent to Beagle Bay mission
and the old Residency (doctor's house) in Derby. Government policy changes in the
1930s saw Western Australian Aboriginal leprosy sufferers being sent to the Northern
Territory's federally commissioned Channel Island leprosarium. However, these
arrangements were short lived. The sinking of one of the transport luggers killing all
onboard brought national attention to the terrible conditions Aboriginal people
suffered en-route to the Northern Territory leprosarium. Newspaper coverage and
parliamentary outrage in both the Western Australian and Federal parliaments led to
the 1934 Moseley Royal Commission into the welfare of Aboriginal people in
Western Australia. One of Commissioner Moseley's recommendations was the
establishment of a leprosarium in the Kimberley region, either on Sunday Island or
near Derby (Davidson 1978, Bungarun Museum 2009, Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
In 1935, the Western Australian Cabinet resolved that a leprosarium would be
established near Derby and within 18 months the leprosarium was built on marsh land
approximately 20 kilometres outside of the Derby township. Described as 'the best
and most up-to-date in the Commonwealth', the Derby leprosarium received its first
patients in December 1936, with the transfer of 90 leprosy sufferers from the old
Native Hospital in Derby. The Sisters of St John of God took over patient care in
1937 and continued to care for inmates until Bungarun closed in 1986. Bungarun was
the last isolation hospital for leprosy patients in Australia, and the last one operating
in the western world (Jebb and Allbrook 2009 citing Clark 1987).
For the Aboriginal people of the Kimberley, Bungarun allowed leprosy sufferers to
stay in or near their country. But while treatment was closer at hand, the methods used
to detain leprosy sufferers were often cruel and inhumane. 'Leper camps' were set up
to separate sick people on missions and stations across the region. Patrols sought out
these sufferers and often used chains to ensure they did not escape en-route to
Bungarun.
In 1941 State legislation was introduced to prevent Kimberley Aboriginal people
moving south of the twentieth parallel except for medical treatment, court attendance,
education, or for droving stock. This 'leper line' as it became known, was intended to
contain leprosy in the north, though its introduction during the Second War World
suggests that it was also a response to security and labour shortage concerns. The
'leper line' legislation was not removed from the statutes until 1963, and well into the
1970s children and relatives of known leprosy carriers underwent a compulsory
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