Week 3 in Myanmar
Let me tell you about Medical Action Myanmar now. The organisation partnered with Green Shoots Foundation and the one I’m responsible to. Please also have a look at the video which summarises their achievements and plans- they could sort out the NHS with their energy and imagination!
MAM is a medical aid organization based in Yangon, whose mission it is to improve access to healthcare for the poorest parts of Myanmar (Burma). It is managed by Dr Frank Smithuis, previous director of Medecins Sans Frontieres Myanmar (from 1994 to 2009), plus a team of wonderful and motivated staff. The current patient outreach is estimated at more than 100,000 consultations for 2012, based on 250 non-AIDS related consultations and 50 AIDS-related consultations per day, 7 days a week.
The video shows you their current clinics in Yangon and some in other states of Myanmar. There are new clinics planned in areas where services are inaccessible or non-existent . More importantly, limited viral load testing as a routine at 6m may also start. At the current clinics, some hepatitis C drugs have been donated – they all have GT3 and we will have sufficient drug for 12w of SOF/DAC: no ribavirin. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in MAM’s ambitions and achievements. A FibroScan has also been donated. Of course, as always there are oddities, there is a slit-lamp for CMV retinitis (an American ophthalmologist has been coming for over a decade and set the programme up – CMV is common) and a brand-new USS (although no-one feels confident enough to use it).
What’s bad for me? You shower whenever you can find a shower, and like this morning there’s no water and hasn’t been for 24h. Electricity comes and goes. A 20-minute walk at 6.30am makes you want to have a shower: deodorant is essential. There is little Wi-Fi, something we take for granted, and of course you don’t have your family. But from my ‘go-to’ Plaza I can Face-Time and Skype and stay in contact with my wonderful better half, the Western world (and buy Gorgonzola and a bottle of wine!). Crossing the road is also equivalent to Russian roulette. But there are too many wonderful positives to mention: the people, the food, the country, and the belief that things will get better for all.
Till next week
Ed
