Tuesday 9 December 2014

Bagan Medical Clinic

This report is based on information from Doctor Hla Tun, who also supplied the photographs.

The previous report showing monthly statistics covered the period up to the end of March 2014, when the total number of treatments since the Clinic opened on August 6, 2011 was 100,203.

Treatment Summary

The table below summarises the number of treatments per month from April to October in 2014 and the total number of treatments since the clinic opened on August 6, 2011.

Month Treatments in month Total treatments
April 2014 1,070 101,273
May 2014 2,691 103,964
June 2014 1,921 105,885
July 2014 2,233 108,118
August 2014 3,425 111,543
September 2014 3,471 115,014
October 2014 3,787 118,801

Monthly notes

April

The Bagan Clinic was closed for two weeks during April, because of the important Water Festival and New Year, which is why the number of treatments in the month is below the average.

September

The picture below shows a 28 year old lady came to the clinic with dyspnea (breathlessness) which she had suffered since the birth of her daughter four months previously. Her delivery had been at home with a traditional birth attendant, being unable to afford a hospital delivery. She displayed pallor and an ECG indicated ischemia. Her haemoglobin level was 7.7 gm% (which should have been more than 10 gm%) and she was also malnourished. She required blood tests, ECG test and medicine (costing the equivalent of 16 USD) and hospitalisation, which she said she could not afford. She lived around 120 miles from the Bagan clinic and had travelled by train with her daughter and mother in law (at a cost of around 7 USD per person since travel by truck would have been around the equivalent of 12 USD each). No charge was made for the treatment at Bagan and, to give mother and daughter a chance of survival, a donation of the equivalent of 50 USD was made for her hospitalisation.



October

A lady attending the clinic from a village around 130 miles away had covered her umbilicus with tape, with the intention of preventing motion sickness on the journey. In general, road conditions in Burma can be poor and journeys to the clinic can take anything up to 8 hours. Dr. Hla Tun comments that he has seen this technique adopted before, in both children and adults and, of course, these patients are also suffering from underlying health conditions.



The photograph below shows the progress on a new shelter for patients at Bagan which will shortly be completed.

A new shelter for patients at Bagan nears completion.

On Clinic Days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), the Head Monk, in co-operation with the ship 'Road to Mandalay' and Donors ensures that patients and their companions are served a free lunch.

Patients and their companions receiving a free lunch.

On 4th October, one of the Donors helped to serve over 200 free lunches to waiting patients.

Free lunch being served to waiting patients.

Other posts on medical support in Myanmar

There are a number of posts in this Blog describing medical support in Myanmar provided by the RTM Social Contribution with help from donors around the world. You can find them all here.

Photographs

There's a collection of pictures showing the Bagan Clinic from its inception here.

Doctor Hla Tun's photographs showing the work of the Bagan Clinic in 2014 are here.