Mae Tao Clinic founder Dr Cynthia Maung said that health organisations on the Thai side of the Thai-Burma border, including the Mae Tao Clinic will need to continue providing healthcare services.
She made the comments at a ceremony held to celebrate her 57th birthday at the Mae Tao Clinic on 6 December.
She said to KIC News: “Many people are still living in insecure situations while migrant workers and refugees are not ready to return home so the health organisations still need to be here.”
She also said that her clinic would give priority to long-term health care and cooperate more with ethnic, Burmese Government and international health organisations.
Not only Burmese migrant workers and refugees, but also ethnic people living along the border area and poor people from Burma rely on the health and educational organisations on the Thai side of the Thai-Burma border.
These organisations are now struggling for survival because they have been receiving less international aid since 2012.
Mann Ba La Sein, the headmaster of Kwel Kabaung School, a Burmese migrant school said: “International aid is slowly falling and we are trying to survive. There is no certainty from the Burmese Government, but we still need to do what we can to educate the migrant children.”
The Mae Tao Clinic provides free medical treatment to around 300 patients a day and about 20,000 Burmese migrant workers’ children are attending over 70 Burmese migrant schools in three provinces in Thailand, according to the Burmese Migrant Education Committee.
Over 400 people attended Dr Cynthia’s 57th birthday celebrations where there were poetry recitations, sports, essay and art contests and an award ceremony for Karen traditional Don dancing.
Reporting by S’Phan Shaung for KIC News
Translated by Thida Linn
Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
