ABANDONED. mentally/physically handicapped people exiled to an island

[Keely]

so my mom read this book and remembered it while i was reading lord of the flies for school and it's really bugging her. so apparently there are all these mentally or physically handicapped (she's pretty sure that they are mainly if not all physically handicapped) people that are sent away to live on this island. that's it. sorry there isn't more. she thinks she had to read it in either high school or in college.
anything helps!
thanks!

[bookel]

The estimated years it was read would help...

Children's/young adult or adult fiction?

What terminology was used in the book? Handicapped? Disabled? Did they use crutches? What kind of disabilities were there?

[Ann aka Iftcan]

And what kind of island was it? Tropical, temperate, filled with lots of plants and animals, nothing on it. Was it set in the ocean or a lake?

[Melanie]

There is a book about a leper colony on a Hawaiian island, maybe this is it? Moloka'i?

[Keely]

she would have read it in the early to mid nineteen nineties and thinks it was a tropical island in the ocean

[Melanie]

Well scratch Moloka'i, it was written in 2003, although it was on a tropical island!

[Keely]

it would be either young adult or adult. definitely not childrens. probably more adult than young adult

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Keely, is your mother still looking for this book ?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No response. Moving to Abandoned.