Ailing Burmese flock to Thailand for treatment
Mae Sot: They travel for days though checkpoints, across dangerous roads and past Myanmar`s bribe-hungry soldiers to make it to the Thai border. They`re not refugees fleeing the junta - they simply want to see a doctor.
Myanmar has one of the world`s worst health care systems, with tens of thousands dying each year from malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, dysentery, diarrhoea and a litany of other illnesses.
While there are hospitals in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation also known as Burma, only a few can afford to pay hospital workers the various ``fees`` in the tightly controlled nation fuelled by corruption.
``Even if you use the toilet in the hospital you have to pay money,`` said a 70-year-old man from Phyu Township, who journeyed two days by bus to see a doctor at the Thai border town of Mae Sot and have a cataract removed. He declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.
``They never think of improving health care,`` he said. ``They only pull the trigger. Because they are holding the guns, we have to live like this.``
Text and Images: AP
