Hawaii group is medical angel in Myanmar

As the year draws to a close and we exchange gifts, my thoughts turn to Aloha Medical Mission’s service trips to Burma that started with a gift of macadamia nut chocolates years ago.

Volunteer doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists have been traveling to Burma, also known as Myanmar, every year since Cyclone Nargis devastated its delta region in May 2008. At the time, I reached out through a Burmese friend to prominent monk Sitagu Sayadaw, sending him a box of macadamia nut candy and an offer to bring a surgical team to provide free medical care.

That small gesture opened the door. With him as our sponsor, Aloha Medical Mission was the only foreign group allowed into the country to treat survivors in the wake of the storm, which killed more than 100,000 people.

This year, our sponsor asked us to go to the remote town of Homalin, population 1,500, on the banks of the Chitwin River, near the Indian border. The people there are very poor, mostly farming, fishing or working in the gold mines.

Our team of 12, including surgeons, anesthesiologists, a family practitioner and nurses, traveled to Homalin in August. When we arrived at the airport, it seemed the whole town was there to greet us, with performers in ethnic costumes playing music and dancing.

Homalin Hospital has one large operating room, but it’s completely empty. No surgical team had ever visited the town. So the operating tables, anesthetic machines, lights and other equipment had to be shipped by river boat in advance from Mandalay, a town 400 miles away. The people were extremely hospitable, and volunteers showed up daily with delicious meals and to help care for patients.

In five days, our surgeons did 150 major operations, from goiters to breast tumors to hernias, and treated more than 300 patients.

One 20-year-old woman had a tri-lobe goiter, with the right and left lobes, and the center isthmus, each bulging like grapefruits around her neck. When I returned home, I was able to find only one case of tri-lobe goiter reported in the medical literature. The surgery succeeded, and we left a supply of thyroid medicine for her and committed to provide it for the rest of her life.

Then in October, 22 volunteers from Aloha Medical Mission headed to Burma again, traveling to Sagaing, the holiest town in the country, with over 1,000 temples, pagodas and convents, as well as Inle Lake. Altogether, we did 161 major surgeries and treated 1,060 patients.

Sayadaw, who is known for his social service work, has founded numerous hospitals, including the Sitagu Ayudana Hospital in Sagaing, which has 120 beds and well-equipped operating rooms.

We had brought along prostheses for patients who had lost their hands or forearms, donated by the Ellen Meadows Foundation in Oregon. We were shocked when 174 amputees showed up. We ran out of our supply after fitting 36 with prostheses, and the other patients will have to wait until our trip next year. Most had lost their limbs in industrial accidents. Those who did get new hands can now eat, ride bikes and use a broom or hoe.

We later flew to Inle Lake: It has only one road leading to the boat landing, so everyone travels by five-passenger boats around the lake. We stayed at a floating hotel and boated to Sitagu Hospital, from 7 a.m. each morning till around 8 p.m. Our patients were mostly farmers and fishermen, living in homes built on bamboo stilts over the lake. Their floating gardens produce the bulk of the tomatoes sold in Burma.

As with all our Aloha Medical Missions in Asia and the Pacific, our members pay their own way and use vacation time to provide free medical and surgical care to indigent patients.

Although the days are long and the work demanding, our trips to Burma usually have waiting lists.

Tax-free donations to buy medicines and supplies can be sent to the Aloha Medical Mission, 810 N. Vineyard Blvd., Honolulu, HI 96817.