Myanmar is undergoing an economic crisis that has led 40% of the population to live below the poverty line. Many Burmese seek a better future in Thailand, where they are easily employed in agriculture, fishing and construction often without health assistance. MedAcross has activated a mobile clinic that visits migrant villages every month offering medical checkups and training Community Health Volunteers to inform people about their health rights.
The situation of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand is extremely precarious: endless hours of work with a high risk of injury with no health support. Most Burmese workers do not know that Thailand has provided a health coverage system for migrant workers, so all of these people do not receive adequate and continuous health care, but use private health services only in cases of extreme emergency and only if they have the ability to meet the costs, which can absorb their average monthly salary
Through the Mobile Clinic, we want to reach 13 Burmese migrant communities living in Ranong Province each month to provide free medical checkups and medicines. We also want to train 30 health referrers within the migrant communities on first aid, prevention of accidents at work and common diseases, and awareness of their health rights.
Over the duration of the project, Community Health Volunteers will be able to acquire health skills from MedAcross staff, realizing a transition of specific health knowledge that stays within the migrant worker communities through a scalable process. The project provides information on access to Thailand's national health insurance, which will progressively take over the health of migrant workers.
This project has provided additional documentation in a XLSX file (projdoc.xlsx).
