I was ready to leave the Doctor's house at 6.30 a.m. as requested but it was nearer 5.45 a.m. as we set off for the airport with the Doctor driving at high speed and his younger son trying to sleep on the back seat prior to returning the car to the family home. At the still fairly new Domestic Terminal of Mingalardon Airport, security checks were friendly, check-in for the Mann Yadanarpon Airlines 07:00 flight to Nyaung Oo was simple and, after a short wait, we joined the transfer bus. Our aircraft was not at a stand near the terminal building. Instead, we drove just past the end of the runway, crossed via a cutting below the level of the runway and emerged at more recently constructed aircraft stands where a group of ATR72 turbo-prop aircraft for various domestic airlines were waiting..
Our journey to Nyaung Oo took about 75 minutes and it was hot on our arrival. A police sergeant greeted the Doctor and, with his help, we quickly secured our baggage and met Hla Win Ko who was to drive us to the Clinic at Bagan.
The original clinic building at Bagan Medical Clinic, May 2019: Patients register at the now-glazed window on the left. The writing on the window is "Mingale Ba" - the all-purpose Burmese greeting. After treatment, any prescribed medication is issued at the right-hand window.
At the Clinic there were so many old friends to greet; it was a real homecoming for me.
The Dispensary Area at Bagan Medical Clinic 2019
Of course, Doctor Hla Tun immediately started doing consultations and I sat-in for a time.
Doctor Hla Tun and three assistants in his Consulting Room: Bagan Medical Clinic, May 2019.
I think 213 patients had registered for Saturday's clinic and they were shared between Doctor Hla Tun and two other doctors, with Doctor Hla Tun dealing with the more complex cases.
The Doctor invited me into a separate treatment room to observe the administration of a spinal injection for pain relief and at the same time, Captain Myo Lwin and his wife arrived, having flown from Yangon on a later flight operated by KBZ Airlines. After a career on a variety of ships including large container vessels, the Captain's last command was the 'Road to Mandalay' River Cruise ship which was where I first met him in 2008 and we've remained good friends ever since. After hunting round the site for the Captain, I discovered that he and his wife had left to check in at their hotel, after which they'd return to see me.
I was sitting-in with Doctor Hla Tun at 11.30 a.m. when the public address announced that the free cooked lunch for patients and their companions was about to be served, so I went to have a look. The Abbott was already handing lunches to a long line of patients but, as soon as he saw me approaching, he gestured for me to take over the distribution and a joyful, if frantic, few minutes resulted as well over two hundred meals were handed out.
Burma 2019: Distribution of free lunch, Saturday 11th May 2019.
The open-sided building from which these meals are distributed is now a properly-constructed wooden structure with a 'tin roof' and computer-printed banners hung on the outside - a far cry from the more modest shelter used when the Clinic first opened in 2011.
When Captain Myo Lwin and his wife came back, we chatted for a while with The Doctor, who did not interrupt his treatments, except for a couple of minutes for formal pictures of the Abbott, Doctor Hla Tun, Captain Myo Lwin and the writer, which the Captain had requested to record those whom he regards as the main instigators of the Bagan Clinic Project.
The Abbott, Doctor Hla Tun, Jan Ford and Captain Myo Lwin: Bagan Medical Clinic, 2019
I sat-in with the Doctor until the early evening. It's always humbling to see how stoical seriously-ill Burmese can be when faced with either lack of local services or inability to pay the costs involved. Whilst the Bagan Clinic makes no charge for consultations, a nominal charge of a few dollars for medication is made although this is cancelled in cases of need.
The intensive schedule of the previous few days together with recovering from my earlier infection meant that I retired hours before the Doctor. Daytime outside temperatures in Bagan of 44 degrees Celsius meant that even local people were complaining of the heat. The main consulting rooms (and the bedroom I use at the Clinic) fortunately have air conditioning and a modern, large diesel standby generator makes up for frequent 'outages' of the external electricity supply.
The following day, Sunday, continued in a similar way. I was surprised to discover that only 80 new patients had registered for Sunday. The Doctor explained that the 12th of May is celebrated as 'Buddha's Birthday' in Myanmar and is a public holiday. This one date celebrates the Birth, Enlightenment and Death of the Buddha. There's a Wikipedia article here. Captain Myo Lwin and his wife returned to the Clinic during Sunday morning and Doctor Hla Tun's mother arrived by car, having flown from Yangon to Nyaung Oo. I'd first met this lady in 2017, when she joined us on a trip to Mon State (described in a series of reports here}.
Slowly, the numbers of waiting patients dwindled as they were seen by the Doctor and then received prescribed medication.
Update on number of treatments
In the earlier post here I reported on the number of treatments carried out up to the end of 2018. I was able to confirm the further treatments in the first four months of 2019 as follows:-
January: 2,709Note that, because of 'Thingyan', the national water festival in April, the Clinic only opens for two weekends that month so patient treatments are always lower than other months.
February: 2,739
March: 3,121
April: 1,257
Related posts on this website
This is one of a series of posts describing my 14th visit to Myanmar. The post Return to Burma is the first post in the series.
Clicking on the 'Next report' link displays the post describing the next events. In this way, you may read about the trip in sequence.
Next report.
Alternately, clicking on the 'All my Burma 2019 reports' link displays all the posts on this trip in reverse date-of-posting order.
All my Burma 2019 reports.
This blog has a number of articles on Medical Support (mainly in Myanmar). You can display them all (in reverse date-of-posting order) by clicking here or selecting 'Medical Support' in the 'List of Labels to Select a Blog Topic'.
My pictures
I've uploaded lots of pictures to 'Flickr' but they're not all sorted and titled. I'll get onto it as soon as I can.
Bagan Medical Clinic, May 2019
Around Bagan Clinic 2019
Burma 2019
[Text added 13/14-May-2019, 21-May-2019: Edits, pictures embedded 1-Jun-2019]
