10 May
With the COVID-19 outbreak infecting nearly 200 people, our country is facing an unprecedented public health emergency.
The Union Government together with regional/state governments, have made strenuous efforts to tackle the crisis, along with the involvement of the country’s people.
In these days of our battle with coronavirus disease, people who caught fever and illness have nowhere to receive medical checks because private clinics have been closed and their family doctors stay away from patients in this time of the COVID-19 crisis.
To solve this, small-scale fever clinics have been mushrooming nationwide this month to help detect suspected COVID-19 cases at earlier stages and improve local monitoring of the infectious disease.
The role of the community fever clinics has become an important factor in providing health care services to the people, and in diagnosing possible COVID-19 patients. The clinics are open to anyone who exhibits a broad range of upper respiratory illnesses, including influenza, sore throat, strep throat, fevers or potential exposure to COVID-19.
Early detection is essential to prevent the spread of the virus and deliver successful treatment, according to experts.
There is an immediate need for volunteers, especially local doctors who closed their private clinics, along with retired government servants, military medical service personnel and private doctors, to help community-based clinics, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We appeal to such doctors to come forward at this hour of need. In this time of crisis in our community, having doctors and volunteers at our fever clinics is like a breath of fresh air for the communities.
Volunteering to provide medical care to the needy can be considered donating medical services, which is different than other ways of helping out, both physically and mentally. Donating food, volunteering or donating money also provides help to our community.
Now is the right time for volunteer doctors to contribute their professional expertise to the country, and to be a part of this noble mission to serve the country.
But, for the safety of doctors who are willing to volunteer at the clinics, they need to receive training offered by the Myanmar Medical Association.
We are looking forward to you, the volunteer doctors, to share the burden before it overwhelms the available doctors in the public health system.
GNLM
