A shortage of skilled doctors and diagnostic equipment has led to many misdiagnoses and even deaths in Monghnyin Township in Kachin State’s Indawgyi Township.
Talking of one such incident when a young girl was misdiagnosed, a woman from Indawgyi Region said: “A little girl got really sick, so her parents took her to the hospital in Nammun Village [in Monghnyin Township]. The doctor there thought it might be dengue and admitted her for treatment. But while she was at the hospital, blood started coming out from between her teeth. Her mother got really worried and took her to another hospital in Mandalay City. That’s when they found out she actually had leukaemia. She passed away from the disease.”
Similar incidents have been frequently reported in Monghnyin Township in the last few months. Cancer cases have been rising in the area and frequent misdiagnoses have resulted in patients receiving inappropriate treatment and caused delays in them receiving appropriate treatment in a timely way.
These problems are caused by a combination of too few skilled doctors and inadequate diagnostic equipment. This means that medical test results are delayed because laboratory samples have to be sent to major cities like Mandalay.
Due to the shortage of doctors most public hospitals in the township mainly rely instead on senior nurses for healthcare support, whilst private hospitals have only a few part-time doctors.
A young woman who went through a life-threatening situation because of a wrong diagnosis said: “The hospital in Hopin Town [in Monghnyin Township] does offer blood tests for diagnosis, but it usually takes a long time to get the results. I know they send the samples to Mandalay, but I’m not sure if it’s by plane or by car. Sometimes it can take up to 15 days to get the results.”
Before the 2021 coup, Monghnyin Township had a total of 25 doctors and around 110 nurses. Now, only about a third of those healthcare staff are still working in the area, as many of the staff joined the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and refuse to work for the junta. This has left the junta struggling to fill the gaps amongst healthcare staff left by those who joined the CDM.
On 24 September 2023, local elders requested the junta-appointed Chief Minister of Kachin State, U Khet Htain Nan, to upgrade the Monghnyin District Public Hospital’s capacity to 200 beds. He promised that he would pass the request onto his superiors.
