MYANMAR —AW Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Asia World Group of Companies, has handed over to Myanmar’s Ministry of Health the newly completed Wai Bar Gi New Wing – National Centre for Infectious Diseases.
Dedicated to the treatment of infectious diseases and pandemics such as COVID-19 which exerted heavy patient load on the public healthcare sector, it is the most advanced medical center to date in Myanmar.
The modern medical center at Wai Bar Gi Hospital in Yangon will provide specialist treatment for pandemic and infectious diseases for all Myanmar citizens.
Lieutenant General Aung Lin Dwe, the secretary of the State Administration Council, unveiled a plaque commemorating the handover of the three-story, 110-bed medical Centre, which was completed with a donation of 6 billion kyats (US$2.9 million) and US$ 3.1 million from the Foundation.
The 51,055 square feet (4,745sqm) Center is equipped with airflow control (negative-positive pressure), integrated oxygen access, isolation rooms, and water treatment.
It also contains features that combine to make it one of the most technologically-advanced public healthcare facilities in the country, according to a press release.
AW Foundation believes the new Centre will support the public healthcare system for the treatment of COVID-19 and any future pandemic.
The Wai Bar Gi New Wing was mooted in November 2020 by the AW Foundation team based on the personal experience of colleagues during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lack of quarantine hospitals, beds, and oxygen supply, and critically, the exposure of the devoted medical frontliners taking care of patients in general hospitals were gaps in the healthcare system evidenced during the critical period.
This handover comes at a time when the junta’s Ministry of Health has fired 557 government-employed doctors who left their jobs to protest against the military government, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA)
The Junta government revoked the doctors’ licenses at a time when medical professionals are in short supply and are already stretched by fighting and the pandemic.
The striking doctors joined other government workers in what has come to be known as a nationwide “Civil Disobedience Movement,” or CDM, refusing to do their jobs to take a stand against the military government that took power in a February 2021 coup.
Amid the dismissals of CDM doctors, the junta lowered the requirements for applicants to medical school in 2022, citing the need to fill the gap created by large numbers of physicians joining the anti-coup movement.
In addition to suspending the licenses of doctors in the Civil Disobedience Movement, the junta has also targeted medical professionals in the movement in other ways.
According to figures released by the ReliefWeb watchdog group in May, the junta has detained at least 564 medical professionals since the coup and killed at least 36 others.
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