Asian Review
Publication Date
2015-07-01
Abstract
Over the past two decades, communities in the border areas of Tak Province, Thailand, and in neighboring districts of Myanmar, have established a primary healthcare system. Conflict, displacement and institutional neglect have left this region of Eastern Myanmar without functioning public health services. Forced displacement and statelessness excluded these same communities from health services in Thailand. This paper presents two short case studies that describe how the network prioritizes access to basic care at the village level, with ethnic and community organizations training village health workers to provide health education and to manage common diseases. More serious cases are referred to a network of field and community clinics, and to hospitals on both sides of the Thai-Myanmar border. This latter engagement with government hospitals in Thailand demonstrates an enabling policy environment that develops the adaptive capacity of migrants, rather than regulation that focuses on threat and victimhood. This paper concludes that this kind of approach can provide a future blueprint to guide early engagement between the community health system and national health system reform in Myanmar.
DOI
10.58837/CHULA.ARV.28.2.3
First Page
39
Last Page
56
Recommended Citation
Maung, Cynthia and Russell, Tara
(2015)
"Achieving access to health for mobile populations through community health systems on the Thai-Myanmar border,"
Asian Review: Vol. 28:
No.
2, Article 4.
DOI: 10.58837/CHULA.ARV.28.2.3
Available at:
https://digital.car.chula.ac.th/arv/vol28/iss2/4