Local medics plan Myanmar trip

The Aloha Medical Mission is seeking permission from Myanmar's military government to send an emergency mission there in the aftermath of a devastating cyclone.

TO HELP Donations to buy medicine and supplies can be sent to Aloha Medical Mission Burma Fund, 810 N. Vineyard Blvd., Honolulu, HI 96817.

The group's volunteers also will participate in a four-month mission by the Naval hospital ship USNS Mercy to Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The ship will leave Pearl Harbor on Monday, and 20 to 30 Aloha Medical Mission volunteers will meet it at various ports.

Dr. Carl Lum, a surgeon, will be medical director for the tentative Myanmar mission unless it coincides with a June 2-6 Laguna Philippines Mission he has scheduled.

Dr. Vernon Ansdell, a specialist in internal and tropical medicine and vice president for Aloha Medical Mission's overseas missions, will lead volunteers for the Mercy mission. He will meet the ship at Papua New Guinea in August.

Aloha Medical Mission volunteers provided lifesaving treatment to patients at the Sittagu Ayudhana Hospital near Mandalay in their second mission to Myanmar (Burma) last November. They are planning a third mission Oct. 17 to that hospital.

Lum, who was on the earlier missions, said he contacted the Venerable Sayardaw, the chief monk from Sagaing who sponsored the missions, who said he would try to assist with the emergency trip.

Lum sent e-mails to Aloha Medical Mission members describing the difficult logistics and asking who would be interested in participating. As of yesterday, 14 doctors and six nurses had volunteered.

One was Dr. Myo Nwe, chief of the Kuakini Medical Center emergency room, who was on the last mission to Myanmar. Nwe's mother and family live in Yangon.

The devastation from the cyclone and tidal wave "is worse than Katrina," Lum said. "There is a tremendous need for food, water, shelter and medical care.

"Many governments, the U.N. and humanitarian organizations have offered to help, but so far only a few have been permitted to go there by the military junta," he said, adding that visas have been difficult to obtain.

He said the date of the emergency mission has not been determined, but it probably will not happen for three to four weeks, "if ever."

The team would fly to Yangon, then go to the delta area, he told volunteers by e-mail. "We might go to the chief monk's clinic in Pantanaw, which is in the Irrawady division in the delta area, which was hit the hardest and is 55 miles from the capital," Yangon.

"The wonderful people there have suffered a lot, and they deserve our help."

Ansdell said the volunteers will participate in various phases of the Mercy's humanitarian civic assistance mission to the Philippines, Vietnam, the Federated States of Micronesia, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea.

"Most of our volunteers are going to be focusing on Papua New Guinea in early August," he said. "It's an area that probably needs a lot of help."

"We try to develop ongoing relationships with areas we go," he said. "I hope we might be able to do that in Papua New Guinea."

Aloha Medical Mission volunteers pay their own travel expenses for missions and take equipment, supplies and medicine with them.