23 May 2008
Singapore medical team heads to Myanmar -- 15-member team is one of first from overseas to be allowed in
The Straits Times - pg 21

SEND-OFF: Health officials wishing the team well as they left for Myanmar yesterday from Paya Lebar airbase aboard an SAF jet. (ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN)










By Jessica Jaganathan 

THE last time Toh Hui Xian did relief work, she was a teen helping victims of the Asian tsunami in Sri Lanka in 2005.

Then a student nurse with Nanyang Polytechnic, Miss Toh was overwhelmed with emotion seeing the countless people needing basic care.

Now, armed with two years of nursing experience, the 22-year-old is embarking on her second relief mission - this time to cyclone-hit Myanmar as a nurse with Singapore General Hospital.

She is expecting conditions to be worse this time in terms of housing and environment.

'I'm expecting the worst, so anything better would be a bonus,' she said.

Just a year older than Miss Toh is nurse Muhammad Azmi Abu Shah, of Alexandra Hospital, who will be doing relief work for the first time.

When asked about his feelings regarding the trip, he said they were of excitement mixed with apprehension.

The two nurses are part of a 15-member medical team which left for Myanmar yesterday, comprising four doctors, eight nurses, two Red Cross officials and a Ministry of Health (MOH) official.

They are among the first foreign medical aid workers Myanmar is allowing into the disaster area, following a decision by the ruling junta to accept help from Asean.

The medical team will most probably be based in a 50-bed hospital in Twante township, an hour's drive south of Yangon, Myanmar's main city, said Mr Wong Yoong Cheong, director of MOH's operations readiness control division.

The team left at about 1pm on a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) C-130 transport aircraft from Paya Lebar airbase, armed with 250kg of medical supplies - enough to treat about 100 to 200 patients.

The supplies include drugs such as paracetamol and general phamaceutical supplies such as dressing aids and bandages.

Two senior doctors and a nurse may also be sent from Singapore tomorrow with more medical supplies, as well as to make a further assessment of the situation, said Mr Wong.

If there is a need, more medical staff might be sent later, he added.

The team's leader, Dr Arif Tyebally, 33, said an initial assessment showed the team members can expect to be dealing with mostly primary health care issues at the moment, such as snake bites, chest infections and gastroenteritis.

'We are going in more than two weeks after the disaster has taken place, so perhaps we will see complications of the disaster due to contaminated water supplies or poor living conditions,' he said.

The team will be deployed there for two weeks.

Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that its team had found 80per cent of houses to be damaged and metre-high flood waters in some parts of the Daala and Twante townships, in which 300,000 people lived.

More than 120,000 people were killed and millions displaced when Cyclone Nargis ripped through Myanmar on May 3.

Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng yesterday signed a condolence book for victims of the disaster at the Myanmar Embassy.

He did so as Acting Foreign Minister, because Mr George Yeo is on an official visit to Indonesia.

In the condolence book, Mr Wong offered his deepest sympathies to the victims and families who had been affected, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

jessicaj@sph.com.sg