• Burmese
Thursday, July 10, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
26 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Burma

Thirty Years On, Mae Tao Clinic Continues to Provide Life-Saving Services

Nyein Nyein by Nyein Nyein
June 21, 2019
in Burma
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0 0
A A
Dr. Cynthia Maung stands in front of the Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Tao village of Mae Sot in Thailand’s Tak province in June 2019. / Aung Kyaw Htet / The Irrawaddy

Dr. Cynthia Maung stands in front of the Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Tao village of Mae Sot in Thailand’s Tak province in June 2019. / Aung Kyaw Htet / The Irrawaddy

7.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

MAE SOT, Thailand—Thirty years ago on June 22, Mae Tao Clinic was cofounded by six people as an emergency medical relief center to help wounded soldiers of the once-outlawed Student Army (the All Burma Students’ Democratic Front) in a small house in Mae Tao village of Mae Sot, Tak province, in Thailand. Years later, the clinic continues to serve people in the community, the majority of whom are Myanmar migrant workers. It has provided healthcare services to tens of thousands of people in its three decades of operation.

Mae Tao Clinic is also a key health center for pregnant women, mothers with newborn babies and patients with chronic illnesses. For the past 30 years, countless women have had to rely on the clinic for child delivery, blood tests, access to reproductive health knowledge including family planning, child vaccinations and registration of birth certificates.

A child is weighed at the Mae Tao Clinic. / Aung Kyaw Htet / The Irrawaddy

Ma Toe Toe Lwin, a mother of four, was in line waiting at the Mae Tao Clinic on Wednesday morning to get her 2-month-old twin daughters vaccinated. She was one of several dozen mothers with small babies seeking vaccinations for their children. She came from a plantation site in a remote village of Mae Sot, where she and her husband work as migrant workers.

RelatedPosts

Bangladeshi Islamist Party Proposes Independent Rohingya State in Myanmar’s Rakhine

Bangladeshi Islamist Party Proposes Independent Rohingya State in Myanmar’s Rakhine

April 28, 2025
2.5k
Myanmar Refugees in Limbo, Thailand in Denial

Myanmar Refugees in Limbo, Thailand in Denial

March 22, 2025
2.7k
Bangladesh Arrests Notorious Rohingya Militant Leader

Bangladesh Arrests Notorious Rohingya Militant Leader

March 19, 2025
1.2k

For people like her, Mae Tao Clinic is the only healthcare facility where they can get treatment or get vaccinated.

Mothers wait to have their children vaccinated at the Mae Tao Clinic. / Aung Kyaw Htet / The Irrawaddy

“I live far from the clinic but the local [Thai public] clinic which is near my home told me to come here when I tried to get the vaccinations there, so I came. Coming here costs me more than 1,000 baht [about US$32], but I needed to come,” she said.

Dr. Cynthia Maung, the chief founder of the Mae Tao Clinic, said the clinic would continue providing services to patients along the Thailand-Myanmar border, as well as providing training to the medics and cooperating with civil society groups despite its shrinking funding.

Since 2012, after funding assistance to border-based healthcare service providers and refugee-relief groups was cut, the clinic has continued to manage its operations by reducing its staff members’ salary to 80-85 percent of their former levels. Before that, the clinic’s fundraising covered 70 percent of total costs, she said, but now fundraising only covers some 30 percent of the operational costs.

“Many obstacles still exist regarding the heath-care services for the migrant and marginalized community along the border. There are many people who could not get access to healthcare and who are neglected; thus Mae Tao Clinic will continue its services. In the meantime, we will continue our training, capacity building and awareness raising,” she told The Irrawaddy.

A child is vaccinated at the Mae Tao Clinic. / Aung Kyaw Htet / The Irrawaddy

Some of the treatment programs like eye treatment and prosthesis leg implants have been reduced from full to partial services.

The prosthesis department was started at the clinic in 2000 to provide prosthetic limbs to the area’s many victims of landmines. In the past two decades, the department has also helped other victims of accidents, as well as diabetes patients and disabled people.

Ko Hla Tun, 38, who makes prostheses for patients, is himself a landmine victim. Eighteen years ago, he lost his right leg by stepping on a mine while searching for vegetables in the jungle near his Wah Tho Soe village in Papun Township.

He arrived at Mae Tao Clinic in 2004, and received training on making prosthetic limbs and was soon helping others to get artificial limbs.

He told The Irrawaddy that if he could no longer work at the clinic due to the prosthesis department closing, he would find a new job, though he wasn’t sure what that would be.

Dr. Cynthia Maung said the Mae Tao Clinic will shut down its prosthesis department in May 2020 as people inside Myanmar now have more access to prosthesis workshops supported by the International Committee of Red Cross.

Despite the challenges, she shared her pride that the Mae Tao Clinic has been able to provide treatment to so many patients, serve as a training center for thousands of medics and researchers, and build a strong network with civil society groups and governments. Dr. Cynthia Maung expressed her thanks to all those people who have contributed to the existence of the clinic.

“Many individuals and groups, both from the border areas and from the international community, have contributed a lot to the success of the clinic. We honor you. We thank you. Every success of the Mae Tao Clinic belongs to all of us.”

You may also like these stories:

Dr. Cynthia Maung Wins UNDP’s N-Peace Award

‘Women in Leadership Positions Must Speak for All Women’

Scores of Orphaned Migrant Children Granted Thai ID Cards

Your Thoughts …
Tags: border campschild and maternal healthDr. Cynthia MaungLandminesMae Tao ClinicMigrant Workersprosthetic limbsRefugeesVaccination
Nyein Nyein

Nyein Nyein

The Irrawaddy

Similar Picks:

Myanmar Youth Exodus Feared in Wake of Junta’s Conscription Law
Burma

Myanmar Youth Exodus Feared in Wake of Junta’s Conscription Law

by The Irrawaddy
February 15, 2024
15.7k

Activists warn of increased labor rights violations in Thailand and human trafficking as young people flee to avoid mandatory military...

Read moreDetails
Overseas Employment Suspended as Myanmar Junta Activates Military Conscription
Burma

Overseas Employment Suspended as Myanmar Junta Activates Military Conscription

by The Irrawaddy
February 15, 2024
14.7k

Labor Ministry is apparently seeking to slam exit door on 14 million young people eligible for compulsory military service.

Read moreDetails
Cash-Starved Junta Milks Myanmar Migrant Workers With New Remittance Rule
Burma

Cash-Starved Junta Milks Myanmar Migrant Workers With New Remittance Rule

by The Irrawaddy
September 12, 2023
11.3k

Those who refuse to remit at least 25% of their earnings at regime exchange rate will be barred from working...

Read moreDetails
By Almost Every Measure, Myanmar Junta Ranks Among World’s Worst Regimes
Analysis

By Almost Every Measure, Myanmar Junta Ranks Among World’s Worst Regimes

by Khin Nadi
February 2, 2024
10.8k

The Irrawaddy unpacks the regime’s three-year track record of violence and rights abuses, as assessed by leading global organizations and...

Read moreDetails
Karen Ethnic Army Launches Final Push to Capture Myawaddy on Thai Border
Burma

Karen Ethnic Army Launches Final Push to Capture Myawaddy on Thai Border

by The Irrawaddy
April 9, 2024
10.3k

The KNLA and PDF groups launched an attack on the last junta battalion defending Myawaddy on Tuesday afternoon and were...

Read moreDetails
Myanmar IDPs Stranded by Junta Troops in Northern Shan State Face a Long Walk Home
Burma

Myanmar IDPs Stranded by Junta Troops in Northern Shan State Face a Long Walk Home

by Hein Htoo Zan
November 30, 2023
9.9k

After fleeing Laukkai Town to save their lives, thousands of IDPs are now sleeping on roads outside Lashio as junta...

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
--

Are the Govt and Military at Odds over Buddhist Nationalists?

Myanmar border guard police force patrol near the Myanmar-Bangladeshi border outside Maungdaw, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, November 12, 2017. / Reuters

Myanmar Orders Internet Shutdown in Conflict-Torn Rakhine State: Telco Operator

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

37 Years and Counting: Why Has Myanmar’s Democracy Struggle Taken So Long?

37 Years and Counting: Why Has Myanmar’s Democracy Struggle Taken So Long?

1 week ago
1.4k
China’s Surveillance State Watches Everyone, Everywhere

China’s Surveillance State Watches Everyone, Everywhere

2 days ago
778

Most Read

  • Chin Resistance Tensions Boil Over as CNA Seizes Rival’s Myanmar HQ

    Chin Resistance Tensions Boil Over as CNA Seizes Rival’s Myanmar HQ

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘Reforms Are Not Optional’: Prominent Activist Urges NUG to Act Before It’s Too Late

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Chinese Investment Reshapes Myanmar’s N. Shan as MNDAA Consolidates Power

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta’s Top Russian Arms Supplier Tosses in Quake ‘Donation’

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.