Healthcare for 2000 Rural Villagers in Myanmar

For over a year now, we have been supporting the Mobile Clinic project with training to empower Burmese communities living far from health facilities with health volunteers.

With this approach, we not only address health emergencies but activate a long-term process of change that matches the prevention and empowerment of the most fragile communities.

Health trainings cover various topics:

• health education sessions and workshops to raise awareness of hygiene practices, disease prevention, family planning, and reproductive health.
• health checks within the community, monitoring vital signs and identifying potential health risks to report to MedAcross staff.

Watch the video interview conducted by our Burmese team with one of the Community Health Volunteers:

YOUTUBE VIDEO COMMUNITY HEALTH VOLUNTEER

C. lives on Ywar Tar Yar island, in the Andaman Sea close to Kawthaung township, she is 52 years old and with her husband makes a living from fishing. Four years ago while she was fishing she injured her leg.  To treat it, she went all the way to Kawthaung Hospital, but after the emergency was fixed, she could not afford the cost of hospital care (70 percent is borne directly by the patient in Myanmar) so she returned to her island trying to care for herself at home. 

As time passed, the leg could never fully heal, and C. was no longer able to work as much as before the injury. 

The MedAcross Mobile Clinic also serves some of the islands in the Andaman archipelago, where people live without a permanent medical facility. That's how C. learned about the free care provided monthly by doctors who arrive on the island. 

"The first time I saw the doctors arrive on the island I thought it was a stroke of luck. They gave me a booklet in which they wrote down my health problems, examined me, and medicated my leg by giving me medicine. But I didn't think I would see them again, Ywar Tar Yar is an isolated place and no one ever comes here. After some time they came back, the doctors remembered my leg problem and treated me again. They explained to me that the injury will take time to heal because it has been neglected, but they assured me that I can go back to being almost like I was before the incident."

The Mobile Clinic is a vital service that reaches patients living far from health centers in Myanmar's far south, where the situation is extremely precarious.