- Hansen’s disease sanatoria, both national and public, were built to accommodate as many patients as possible, with the smallest budget.
- There was a rule known as the preventative disciplinary code, under which the patients were put into confinement cells if they tried to escape or resisted the staff.
- Marriage was allowed as a way to keep them in the sanatoriums for life. But the men had to be sterilized, and the women, if they became pregnant, had to undergo abortion.
- The work necessary to operate the sanatoria, such as cooking and laundry, manual labor such as carpentering and road work, and farming, were undertaken by the patients.They were badly paid and were at times injured while working and their illness was aggravated because of all the labor.
