Clinic on the India-Burma Border

Our first day working the Zakawthar clinic. Why is that important? Because Zakawthar is separated from Burma by a narrow river. In fact the town is contiguous with the Burmese one on the other side, and the locals cross back and forth all day without getting hassled. We can't go though, whities restricted.


Half the patients crossed the border into India to get treatment from the foreign doctors. As we began there was already a 15-year-old girl lying on a bed suffering a major anxiety attack. A few minutes after Dr. Myron began treating her the entire clinic could hear her hyperventilating until she passed out and they carried upstairs to rest in the doctor's bedroom.

The people coming in from Burma truly are in much worse shape even than the Burmese Chin who have migrated to India and live here full-time. two women came in with great big goiters, there was a man with a bandage over his deformed face who had been mauled by a bear years ago and couldn't afford to have reconstructive surgery in Rangoon. So, his face healed askew and he's been walking around ever since with a bandage taped over the part that won't heal at all. Also a little girl pale with malaria,and all kinds of undernourishment and infections.

Everything they have is something they just can't afford to avoid or fix. Simple things that we all get, but that we never see bet out of control.

The worst thing by far was the birth. In the morning a young man and his pregnant wife came in. Dr. Lopita wasn't sure if anything was wrong and hoped it was just a bladder infection. Later, we were called to their house on the hill because the girl had gone into labour. She was lying on a blanket on the floor, well attended by midwives while the anxious father (who could easily be under 20) waited in the other room. Lopita thought the midwives were doing an excellent job so we left them to it.

About an hour later they called us back because the baby had been born. We came in congratulating the mother, but there was a bad air in the room. The mother was resting, wrapped up on the floor, and the midwife sat on the bed. We couldn't see or hear the baby, it was bundled up completely in the midwife's arms.

She called us over and unwrapped the child to show us. When I saw it I thought it was already dead. it was born at least two months premature, and it was the size of a skinny little guinea pig. It's skin was grey, it's eyes were shut and its mouth was dry and open. I thought I was looking at a dead body.

Outside the room Lopita said she couldn't tell if it was alive or dead, but the midwife assured her it was breathing, a little. Dr. William, the Burmese Chin physician we're working with at the clinic, brought a steroid injection to force the baby's lungs open. When he stuck the baby's thigh, it flinched, just a little, giving us hope it might survive the night. But Lopita said there was no hope it would last longer than that, and maybe William only gave the injection to make us feel better. It did indeed die in the night.