Health Care Update on Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta
While at least a million severely affected people in the Irrawaddy Delta are trying to scrape together proper shelter and supplies of food, health care workers in the Irrawaddy Division are bracing for potentially deadly disease outbreaks. Many survivors of Cyclone Nargis are, no doubt, still seeking care for injuries suffered during the storm as well as sicknesses brought on by days of exposure to the torrential rains of the monsoon season. Health care services in the Irrawaddy Delta have been pieced together from the remnants of staff from local township hospitals along with Ministry of Health staff, staff from Yangon General Hospital and other hospitals, local healthcare workers from NGOs and international teams of doctors from around the region. While medical teams from NGOs and regional countries continue to stream into the country, the entire health care system of Yangon and the Irrawaddy is no doubt undergoing serious strain.Take for example Yangon General Hospital’s staff of roughly 278 doctors and over 400 nurses (as per figures from the Yangon City website). The hospital’s cardiac and cancer wards were reportedly destroyed in the storm, with roofs covering other sections of the hospital being damaged. In addition to handling the afflicted among Yangon‘s population of 5 to 6 million people,
Yangon General’s doctors and nurses have reportedly been dispatched to Mawlamyinegyun, Laputta, Bogale, and Pyapun Townships to supplement local medical staff there. Below we have compiled information from a variety of sources to give an overall view of the provision of health care in the delta, moving geographically from East to West:
Dedaye:
Part of the Chinese team reportedly operates in Dedaye township. The township hospital is reportedly being used although its roof was blown away and all eight rural health centers and 20 sub-centers were badly damaged.
Pyapon:
The district hospital staff has been supplemented by specialists and nurses from Yangon General Hospital. Part of the team of Indian doctors and Medics is also operating there.
Bogale:
A “health cluster” of U.N. and international NGOs has set up an operations center in the Bogale area. The township hospital is being run by local hospital staff along with a team from Yangon General Hospital, consisting of two general surgeons, two orthopedic surgeons, two physicians, two pediatricians, two obstetrics and gynecologists, two anesthetists and six nurses from the Intensive Care Unit and Operation Theatre. The rest of the Indian team of doctors and medics is also operating there.
Other groups of doctors have visited and worked in the area on their own volition:
A week after the cyclone, a group of 20
junior doctors treated some of the hundreds of homeless people crammed
into Bogalay’s monastery and primary school.
“There was a lot of diarrhoea and bad
cuts,” said another 21-year-old junior doctor. “But we couldn’t stay
long because military intelligence people kept photographing and asking
us what we were doing there.”
(Edit: Update) On the International Organization for MIgration’s relief facility in Bogale:
The new facility, which is staffed by five
doctors and four nurses, will also support the work of other relief
agencies and serve as a local hub for the IASC Emergency Shelter Cluster
– the grouping of UN agencies and NGOs providing tents, plastic sheets
and other shelter items to homeless cyclone survivors.
The hub, which was opened this week with the approval of the Ministry
of Health, will also serve as a base for IOM medical teams assessing
health needs in the areas worst affected by the cyclone. Yesterday a
third IOM assessment team comprising seven doctors and two nurses left
Yangon for the delta.Mawlamyinegyun:
The township hospital staff has been supplemented by specialists and nurses from Yangon General Hospital. Mobile teams are also operating in shelters around the township.
Laputta:
The UN-NGO health cluster operates an operations center in the township (a third Irrawaddy operations center is in Bassein). At the township hospital, local staff are being supported by 17 medical specialists and nine nurses from Yangon General Hospital. The three rural health centers in Laputta are also functioning.
Merlin, which had been supporting and supplying local clinics in the area for some time prior to the cyclone, has teams operating in the township and has also acquired a cruiser donated by Pandaw River Cruises. The 180ft boat began operating May 21st as a mobile clinic in the Pyamalaw River and will start clinic operations along the river between the river’s mouth (near the Southwestern tip of the delta) and Laputta Township. Merlin also has another boat to supply this boat and its other operations in Laputta. The NGO has also set up clinics in camps that surround the region
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) also has a base and 4 fixed clinics operating in the township. As of May 17 they reportedly had 106 staff working in the township.
(Editor’s note: We will follow up on this report later this week with details on the Yangon healthcare situation.)
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