From 1935, negotations were underway to identify the land on which the leprosarium in Três Corações was to be built. By 1941, news of the institution had spread throughout the state, and patients were allowed in while construction was still being completed, due to pressure on local authorities from the population’s fears of leprosy. The leprosarium was inaugurated on 12 May 1942 as Colônia Santa Fé.
The colony’s first Director was Dr José Mariano, who worked with the Administrator, Nestor Palhares and fifty members of staff from Colônia Santa Isabel in Betim. After much work cleaning and organising the leprosarium, numbers of residents soon reached over 1 000.
Patients were segregated by sex, age and social status. They were forbidden to leave the colony, or to have contact with ‘healthy’ people. Visitors were allowed, but contact was through a ‘parlatório’, which separated visitor and resident by a gap of two metres, and a guard was present.
Until 1988, 95% of the staff members were residents, working as guards, cleaners, carpenters, cooks and nurses.
Until 1946, chaulmoogra oil was the treatment used. Once sulphones were discovered, patients with more purchasing power began this treatment. In 1949, manufacture of this drug started in the Território Nacional, and it was administered to all patients in the colony.
In 1989, people who were not suffering from leprosy began working in the colony, mainly in administrative roles. MDT was implemented in Santa Fé in 1995. The ‘parlatório’ was no longer used from the end of the 1960s, although the structure remained in place until 1994-1995. Residents obtained the freedom to leave, but often experienced rejection by society and their own families, so many stayed in the colony and are there today.
There is now also a general hospital on the site.
(Information supplied by Sanatório Santa Fé)