Improve Cancer Care for 270 Children in Myanmar

I recently visited our work in Myanmar. In Yangon I met La Min a 4 month old girl who had already had her eye removed due to retinoblastoma, an eye cancer. She had completed her first round of chemotherapy the week before and was waiting on the result of a blood test that would allow her and her mother to begin an 11 hour bus journey home until her next round of chemo was due three weeks later. However the doctors are always worried that poor families who can spend as much as a month’s wages on a bus trip won’t come back when they’ve seen the cancer removed or seeing a tumor shrink believing that is enough, you well know it isn’t.

That's why as well as supporting the development of the medical team's skills we also do everything we can both to reduce the cost to families so that the poorest kids get the chance to complete their chemo and live a full and happy childhood, this can include covering the costs of transportation and drugs.

This doesn't mean that improving skills ins't important, Dr Robert Carr and Dr Denise Williams made their second visit of the year to Yangon in November, they joined the local doctors on their ward rounds and took part in critical case reviews. The local doctors remain the consulting doctor, but by asking leading questions and offering their thoughts the doctors can intorduce new ideas and develop the skills of the local team. Dr Carr also offered a mastercalls in bone marrow aspiration to the the Yangon peadiatric oncologists, pathologists and lab technicians.

They are vital partners in our work, but so are you, without our supporters this work would not be possible, you give children like La Min the gift of growing up, thank you.