State hospitals in Rakhine providing medicine to ex-MSF patients
Published on Sunday, 16 March 2014 22:54
Patients taking medicine at the MSF clinic in Hlaing Thayar Township, Yangon Region (Photo/EMG).
YANGON—State hospitals in Sittwe, Buthetaung and Maungdaw townships in Rakhine State are now providing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) medicines to patients who formerly received medical treatment from the international humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, or Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF).
The source came from the Anti-Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) Project.
The townships' hospitals are giving ART tablets to more than 700 patients. Doctors from the STD project are also rendering medical treatments, as well as providing aid to the patients. They are also offering training courses for the patients.
The MSF patients were transferred to the Ministry of Health earlier this month.
This comes after MSF released a statement on February 28 saying that the government had ordered them to cease operations in Myanmar after accusing the group of being biased in their treatment of Muslims in Rakhine State.
MSF has been working in Myanmar since 1992 and has more than 1,000 local staff and 30 foreign staff. Besides providing treatment for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, MSF has also been carrying out anti-malaria programmes in Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states as well as in Yangon Region.
Presidential spokesperson Ye Htut said the words used in MSF's press release on March 1 were mistaken, as the government had not ordered the group to cease all of its operations in Myanmar.
Since Ye Htut's statement, the MSF resumed operations in various regions across the country on March 3, except in Rakhine State.
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/state-hospitals-in-rakhine-providing-medicine-to-ex-msf-patients/
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