The local hospital has one doctor, who cannot visit the camps, and the hospital lacks medicine and basic equipment, a camp leader says.

Internally displaced people (IDPs) in eastern Kachin State’s Chipwe Township are failing to receive treatment and care for illnesses while in displacement camps, community members have said.

According to Zumzang Htaw Hkawng, who is in charge of IDP Camp (2) in Chipwe, the most recent casualty was a 50-year-old Kachin IDP who suffered from a lung condition. He died on March 13 after being unable to see a doctor or receive medicine at the public hospital in Chipwe Township.

“We transferred a patient to Myitkyina hospital yesterday. The patient died in Myitkyina,” he told KNG.

In their own township, the health care is insufficient, he added.

“There is only one doctor in the hospital. The doctor cannot come to see patients in IDP camps. IDPs are admitted to the hospital if they get a high fever, but there is a lack of medicine in the hospital. There is no x-ray machine,” Zumzang Htaw Hkawng said of the Chipwe Township facilities.

Very few social outreach organizations have come to provide assistance to the IDPs in the two camps in Chipwe Township, residents say.

They have been in the camps for more than seven years and originally come from 17 villages in Chipwe Township.