Monday, March 05, 2007
Saving lives on the Burmese border - BBC News
Allied to the clinic is another organisation, the Backpack Health Workers Team, which trains and equips local people to provide basic medical services in their communities back in Burma.
Often working in active conflict zones, riddled with landmines, these backpack medics risk their lives for their work - in fact seven have already been killed.
But as one young medic, Sa Muna, put it: "If we didn't do this, people would have no help at all."
...
The treatment on offer has revolutionised lives. "First I went to hospital in Burma, and I had to sell all my land to pay for it, but I still didn't get well," said 59-year-old Saw Raymond. "So my two sons brought me here, and I'm feeling a bit better already."
A quiet 34-year-old woman in the corner said she had come to get a supply of anti-retroviral drugs. She recently found out that she had HIV, and her whole village clubbed together to pay for her journey to Dr Cynthia's.
"I couldn't afford any treatment in Burma. If it wasn't for this clinic I'd just be waiting to die," she said.
...
A building at the back of the clinic houses a workshop for Maw Keh and his team, who construct prosthetic limbs for the many landmine victims in the region - a legacy of the long conflict between government and rebel soldiers.
"We often see people who have waited years for a new leg," said Maw Keh, who himself lost a leg to a landmine while fighting for the KNLA (Karen rebel army). ...
Allied to the clinic is another organisation, the Backpack Health Workers Team, which trains and equips local people to provide basic medical services in their communities back in Burma.
Often working in active conflict zones, riddled with landmines, these backpack medics risk their lives for their work - in fact seven have already been killed.
But as one young medic, Sa Muna, put it: "If we didn't do this, people would have no help at all."
...
The treatment on offer has revolutionised lives. "First I went to hospital in Burma, and I had to sell all my land to pay for it, but I still didn't get well," said 59-year-old Saw Raymond. "So my two sons brought me here, and I'm feeling a bit better already."
A quiet 34-year-old woman in the corner said she had come to get a supply of anti-retroviral drugs. She recently found out that she had HIV, and her whole village clubbed together to pay for her journey to Dr Cynthia's.
"I couldn't afford any treatment in Burma. If it wasn't for this clinic I'd just be waiting to die," she said.
...
A building at the back of the clinic houses a workshop for Maw Keh and his team, who construct prosthetic limbs for the many landmine victims in the region - a legacy of the long conflict between government and rebel soldiers.
"We often see people who have waited years for a new leg," said Maw Keh, who himself lost a leg to a landmine while fighting for the KNLA (Karen rebel army). ...
Labels: compassionate people
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