Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued a press release on 18 November, calling for the safety of patients and healthcare workers in the conflict areas of Myanmar.
It also raised grave concern over the welfare of communities caught up in escalating conflicts in many areas, particularly in Shan, Kachin and Rakhine states, where their workers witnessed and experienced the direct impacts on healthcare services.
The MSF said a drone strike hit Pang Hseng hospital on 18 November, which MSF has supported in the past, but the hospital had stopped functioning when armed conflicts escalated at the end of October.
“MSF is also witnessing increasing numbers of missed appointments at our clinic sites where patients come for their regular medication for HIV. Missed appointments mean patients are without their life-saving medication, risking their health, leaving them vulnerable to drug resistance and developing other opportunistic infections.”
The MSF has suspended its regular mobile clinics in Rakhine State, where their teams treat 1,500 patients on a weekly basis, due to the resumption of conflict after the breakdown of a ceasefire brokered last November. Its teams are unable to provide emergency referrals for critically ill patients amid route blockages and travel restrictions.
Regarding recent armed conflicts in northern Shan state, the MSF said, “Many people escaping violence in other areas of Shan State have now fled to Lashio, northern Shan, where MSF is already present providing life-saving HIV and TB services to communities with limited access to treatment.”
Medical facilities have been attacked. In one instance, on 25 September, an MSF team witnessed armed men shooting outside the compound of Hpakant General Hospital in Kachin State, and they eventually made their way inside the hospital and severely injured one patient.
The report of UNOCHA on 15 November said that as of 14 November, more than 200,000 people across these northern states and regions have been forcibly displaced due to the fighting. Many have also moved towards the border with China in northern Shan State.
