By Kantarawaddy Times
Four of the five hospitals recently opened in displaced camps in Karenni State in areas controlled by resistance forces are equipped to perform surgery for gunshot and landmine injuries and child birth, Khoon Phillip, director of the Karenni State Consultative Council (KSCC), told Kantarawaddy Times.
Doctors, nurses and other medical staff who have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement run the hospitals under the KSCC, which was formed by armed groups, civil societies and former lawmakers who were displaced during the coup.
After armed Karenni groups took control of the countryside during the war against dictatorship, the KSCC was able to open more hospitals in the camps. Khoon Phillip said there are 58 clinics in Karenni State run by its Civil Health and Development Network. “We don’t have medical professionals who can perform brain surgeries,” he said.
A nurse who helps civilians in eastern Demawso Township fears that the regime’s forces will attack the camps with medical facilities. “Sometimes we have to move our clinic for security reasons and no one has access to regular medical treatment,” she said on condition of anonymity.
Villagers have already died because they could not get treatment due to fighting between armed groups. According to the civilian monitoring group Progressive Karenni People’s Force, 126 people have died in camps in Burma’s smallest state between 1 February 2021 and 31 December 2022.
Two-thirds of the state’s 300,000 residents have been displaced by the war in Demawso, Hpruso, Loikaw, Maese, Hpasawng, Shadaw and Bawlakhe townships.
