Support Backpack Healthworker Teams in Burma

Thank you so very deeply for your kind and generous support.  In September, with your help, we sent funding to support 30 teams for six months.  We have not raised enough funding to increase our support, but with your help, we have at least been able to maintain our current level of support to medics in ethnic areas of Burma.  These include Karen, Kachin, Pa Oh, Palaung, Arakan, Naga and Royhinga peoples who have no other access to medical care.  Most of the medicines and supplies are very basic: bandages, vitamins, antibiotics, antimalarial medications, deworming medications.  Yet, in these remote areas these medicines save lives.  In January we will need to send funding to support teams for another six months.  Please help!

Since 1999, Burma Humanitarian Mission has partnered with the Backpack Health Worker Teams (BPHWT) to recruit, train and outfit teams of backpack medics and health workers.  Ethnic minorities from the Karen, Kachin, Shan, Pa’laung, Mon, Chin, Rohingya communities comprise BPHWT – in all leadership and field team roles. The backpack teams operate in their respective communities.  The typical team consists of:

• Five medics (2-3 senior medics paired with 2-3 junior medics)
• Five Village Health Volunteers (VHV)
• 5-10 Traditional Birth Assistants (TBA)

While the medics travel to 9 to 12 villages each month, the VHV and TBA remain in their homes.  The backpack teams are outfitted with an array of basic medicine:  Penicillin, Amoxicillin, various anti-malarial treatments (quinine, artesunate, etc) – more than 55,000 doses of medicine for the year.  The teams also rely upon more than 3,000 individual medical supply items, such as bandages, gauges, syringes, stethoscopes and thermometers. 

We have begun fundraising efforts through GlobalGiving, in December of 2081.  Thank you so much to those who have already donated.  We still have a ways to go, but are hopeful to be able to support a new medic team in ethnic areas of Burma with your support.  

Burma has one the world’s worst health care systems, with some of the highest rates of malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, dysentery, diarrhea and other communicable illnesses in the world. In the ethnic conflict areas of Burma, the government provides no healthcare. 15% of children die before their 5th birthday, mostly from illnesses that are easily preventable. Malaria accounts for nearly half of all deaths. 1 in 12 expecting mothers will not survive pregnancy.

Since 1999, Burma Humanitarian Mission has partnered with the Backpack Health Worker Teams (BPHWT) to recruit, train and outfit teams of backpack medics and health workers.  Ethnic minorities from the Karen, Kachin, Shan, Pa’laung, Mon, Chin, Rohingya communities comprise BPHWT – in all leadership and field team roles. The backpack teams operate in their respective communities.  The typical team consists of:

• Five medics (2-3 senior medics paired with 2-3 junior medics)
• Five Village Health Volunteers (VHV)
• 5-10 Traditional Birth Assistants (TBA)

While the medics travel to 9 to 12 villages each month, the VHV and TBA remain in their homes.  The backpack teams are outfitted with an array of basic medicine:  Penicillin, Amoxicillin, various anti-malarial treatments (quinine, artesunate, etc) – more than 55,000 doses of medicine for the year.  The teams also rely upon more than 3,000 individual medical supply items, such as bandages, gauges, syringes, stethoscopes and thermometers.