Sounds like Soe Soe is on antiretrovirals.
********************************
Medicine beyond borders
The Mae Tao Clinic in Tak not only helps displaced people and migrant workers from Burma, it also provides health care services to people across the border
When Soe Soe arrived at the Mae Tao Clinic in Tak's Mae Sot district seven months ago, she weighed only 29kg. She could not eat and could barely breathe. Soe Soe was abandoned by her parents when they found out she was HIV positive. To make it to the Mae Tao clinic from Burma, she had to sell all her belongings. After receiving proper medical treatment at the clinic, Soe Soe now looks like a different person, weighing almost 43kg, and after health counselling sessions is confident of her ability to look after herself.
''The people at the clinic are so kind. They are like my family now,'' Soe Soe said.
The 18-year-old Mae Tao Clinic employs a staff of 441 and provides health care services for displaced people and migrant workers from Burma. Initially set up as an emergency health care centre, operated from an old barn in Mae Sot, it has grown to a 120-bed hospital.
Apart from providing medical services to migrant workers and displaced people from Burma, the clinic also supports two health centres in the Karen state of Burma and supports a school for migrant children.
The main driving force behind the clinic is the ''Mother Teresa of Burma'', Dr Cynthia Maung, an ethnic Karen physician who took part in the 1988 democratic uprising against the Burmese junta. A crackdown forced her to flee to Thailand and she has not returned to Burma since, having lost contact with her family there.
''I fled Burma in 1989,''' recalled the softly spoken physician. ''For the first few months, I lived in a refugee camp with pro-democracy students. With many students suffering from malaria and in urgent need of medical treatment, a few of us contacted NGOs for drugs to treat them.''
That was when the Mae Tao Clinic was established, with the aim to provide free health care to hundreds of thousands of displaced people and migrant workers from Burma.
''The clinic initially provided only medical services. Now, we also want to improve these people's quality of life. We have collaborated with international and local organisations to highlight the problems of displaced children, to better protect them,'' said Dr Maung.
To help the needy along the Thai-Burmese border, the clinic has 76 mobile medical teams to treat malaria patients, train community volunteers and midwives, and to collect health information.
All this helps set up future clinics, improve health facilities, train health workers to provide emergency services, and provide training to social workers. So far, 300 health workers and 300 medics or community health workers have been trained through cooperation with some 40 health clinics under the control of ethnic people.
From providing care to only 200 patients in its first year of operation, the number of patients at the Mae Tao Clinic continues to rise; some 100,000 patients were treated last year.
Malaria continues to be the most infectious disease along the Thai-Burmese border, she said. Other common problems include anaemia, cardiovascular diseases, acute respiratory infections and tuberculosis.
Reproductive health is another area of concern. Apart from treating complications arising from abortions, last year the clinic started providing counselling services to patients and victims of sexual abuse.
The clinic also serves as a training centre for people of various ethnic groups in Burma, who come to train as health workers or hone their medical skills. They later return to the border regions of Burma to provide much-needed health services in rural areas.
Last year, 34 emergency obstetric care training graduates returned to work in 17 areas in the Karen, Karenni and Mon states of Burma.
Among them was Palae Paw, who carried her baby son on her back for two days while trekking from the Pha Hite clinic in the Karen state to train at the Mae Tao Clinic.
Now back in her village, she visits and assists pregnant women who live in the jungle. She also gives pre- and post-natal care, and information on family planning and hygiene. There is no health care provided by the Burmese government for those living in temporary shelters in the jungles, said Dr Maung.
The Pha Hite Clinic staff also provide vitamin A and de-worming tablets for children. There is also a laboratory to test donated blood for victims of landmines and patients with severe anaemia. Victims of landmines are given first aid treatment and later carried to a Karen hospital, which is a six-hour mountainous hike away.
According to Saw Nay Oo, Mae Tao Clinic's School health team coordinator, the clinic has a mobile team that provides basic care, de-worming medication and vitamins to migrant students in 54 schools at refugee camps and shelters in Phop Phra, Mae Sot and Mae Ramat districts.
Every day, the team travels to one or two schools to treat sick children and educate teachers on health care. The children mostly suffer from malaria and skin problems due to poor hygiene. Some of them suffer from malnutrition or pneumonia.
''Those who do not have access to medical treatment call our team for help. We often pick them up in a group and bring them to the clinic for further treatment,'' he said.
With more than 8,000 malaria patients each year, Dr Maung said the clinic's constant challenges are shortages of malaria medications, health volunteers and facilities. HIV and Aids, meanwhile, are growing problems among young people, she added.
Despite donations, Mae Tao Clinic is still in the red. Last year, it received 52 million baht in donations, but spent 54 million baht.
Besides medical treatment, the clinic issues birth certificates to every baby born at the clinic, so they have the documentation to prove their nationality.
Last year, some 1,600 children were born at the clinic. Parents of the children delivered at home have to come to the clinic within 15 days to get a birth certificate to ensure future access to education and health care. The documentation also assists them in claiming Burmese citizenship when they return home.
Mae Tao Clinic also provides free eye treatment and surgery. Last year, the clinic performed some 300 eye operations.
Because of a serious lack of social and medical care in Burma, a large number of the elderly suffer from eye problems. ''They can't get help, or have to wait until it is too late,'' Dr Maung noted.
The clinic also runs a school in Mae Sot for migrant children called the Children Development Centre (CDC). Set up in 1997, it now has 114 kindergarten, 406 primary and 167 secondary pupils. It is funded by the US Brackett Foundation and BMWH in South Korea.
''When we first established the school, it was just like a day care centre. And it keeps growing,'' Dr Maung said, adding that some 70,000 children from Burma need schooling but only 6,000 of them are in school.
Ya Nai Suu, a eighth grader, said he was lucky to have the opportunity to be taught English by native speakers at the CDC, and to be able to study textbooks from Burma. Before, he said, he only studied in the Karen language at a refugee camp.
According to Mahn Shwe Hnin, head of the CDC's primary school, 65 pupils have no families to go back to. ''Some are orphans and the parents of the others are either in jail or are too old to work. The centre provides these pupils with free schooling, accommodation, food and clothing. Until they graduate, the centre looks after their needs.''
Despite limited funds, the school plans to have a library and a computer room next year. It also welcomes donations of books.
The school also plans to extend to
Grade 12 in 2009, though it faces shortages of classrooms, educational materials, computers and foreign teachers, especially to teach English, said Saw Rupert, head of the centre's high school.
According to Dr Maung, she and her colleagues are working to register the school with the Ministry of Education as a learning centre by improving the curriculum, teachers' training and educational facilities.
Her ultimate goal is to give the people a sense of security.
''It's a long struggle. But, in some ways, we've made progress. I believe if people have opportunities, they'll become good citizens.''
Married with four children, the doctor won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for her humanitarian work in 2002 and was voted an honorary award at this year's World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child by 5.2 million children.
With such fame, does she consider herself successful? Ever gentle and humble, she said she saw only the necessity to work harder. ''Because we still see people suffering,'' she added.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Outlook/12Jun2007_out51.php
