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A lifeline on the Thailand-Myanmar border


August 30, 2010
By Peter Biro

At the Mae Tao clinic’s prosthetics workshop, technicians make and fit artificial limbs, mostly for patients who have stepped on one of the many landmines that litter the border area.

Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC

Lifeline on the border

  • The Mae Tao clinic, on the outskirts of the town of Mae Sot in northeastern Thailand, is the only source of medical care for thousands of Burmese along the volatile Thailand-Myanmar border. Supported by the International Rescue Committee through its SHIELD program, the clinic treats around 150,000 patients, half of them from within Myanmar, every year. Patients, unable to afford health care elsewhere, are offered a wide range of free services, including an emergency room, 200 hospital beds, surgical, maternity, and eye-care wards, a laboratory and a blood bank. At the clinic’s prosthetics workshop, technicians make and fit artificial limbs, mostly for patients who have stepped on one of the many landmines that litter the border area.
  • <p>Nyine Tun arrived in the clinic shaking with fever from malaria. She had contracted the often fatal disease two weeks before arriving at Mae Tao from a village deep in eastern Myanmar&rsquo;s interior. &ldquo;I had a very high fever for many days,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I went to the clinic at home, but they wouldn&rsquo;t accept me because I couldn&rsquo;t afford the medicines.&rdquo;</p>
  • <p>Khin That, 25, suffers from high fever and convulsions caused by malaria. &ldquo;A lot of patients live in mosquito-infested forest areas without access to mosquito nets or anti-malarial medicines,&rdquo; says Saw Aung Than Wai, a senior health worker at Mae Tao. &ldquo;It is probably the number one killer on the border.&rdquo;</p>
  • <p>Thirty-six-year old Maung Oo, who is yet to be diagnosed, is just one hundreds of Burmese who come to the clinic to receive treatment every day. Some have fled ethnic conflict and economic stagnation inside Myanmar, also known as Burma&mdash;many are members of the Karen ethnic group&mdash;while others are living in Thailand as migrant workers.</p>
  • <p>While many patients have to travel for days on poor roads to make it to Mae Tao, for many, it&rsquo;s the only way to receive free healthcare. When U Mya Aye contracted tuberculosis, it not only threatened his already fragile health, but the economy of his entire family. Unable to pay for his treatment and in serious financial debt after costly chest X-rays, the 53-year-old Burmese traveled across potholed dirt roads on the back of a truck to make it to the clinic. &ldquo;It was not easy to get here, but it saved me,&rdquo; he says.</p>
  • <p>Dr. Aya Tanabe, a volunteer from Japan, and Eh Ta Mwee, a senior medic, perform an amputation in Mae Tao&rsquo;s surgery ward. The Myanmar border area is littered with landmines, maiming and killing hundreds of people every year. At Mae Tao&rsquo;s prosthetics clinic, landmine victims and amputees receive free surgical and post-operative care, artificial limbs and rehabilitation.</p>
  • <p>Over 80 percent of all patients who receive prostheses at Mae Tao are landmine victims. All patients are very poor and cannot afford artificial limbs in Myanmar.</p>
  • Mae Tao is also training technicians, all of them landmine survivors, in the construction of prosthetics. Hundreds of Burmese landmine amputees have been fitted with prosthetic limbs and undergone rehabilitation since the prosthetics clinic opened in 2001.
  • Up to a dozen poor Burmese women a day give birth safely at the clinic's maternity unit. According to studies conducted by organizations affiliated with Mae Tao, the infant mortality rate in eastern Myanmar is 91 deaths for every 1,000 births, compared to an average rate of 76 for the rest of the country and only 18 in Thailand. At Mae Tao, all newborns are provided with birth certificates -- a crucial document in order to claim Burmese nationality in the future.
  • Myanmar has the fourth highest child mortality rate in the world with up to 150,000 children under the age of five years dying every year, according to the United Nations. At Mae Tao, children receive treatments ranging from acute surgery, immunization, de-worming and supplementary feeding.
  • In isolated rural areas, disease and malnutrition are endemic. This underfed and anemic boy is treated with a blood transfusion. “He is recovering fast,” says senior health worker Saw Aung Than Wai.
Launch Slideshow

The Mae Tao clinic, on the outskirts of the town of Mae Sot in northeastern Thailand, is the only source of medical care for thousands of Burmese along the volatile Thailand-Myanmar border.

Photos by Peter Biro/The IRC.

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The Mae Tao clinic, on the outskirts of the town of Mae Sot in northeastern Thailand, is the only source of medical care for thousands of Burmese along the volatile Thailand-Myanmar border. Supported by the International Rescue Committee through its SHIELD program, the clinic treats around 150,000 patients, half of them from within Myanmar, every year.

Patients, unable to afford health care elsewhere, are offered a wide range of free services, including an emergency room, 200 hospital beds, surgical, maternity, and eye-care wards, a laboratory and a blood bank. 

I visited the Mae Tao clinic this spring and took these photos.  Read a story about the clinic here.

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