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By Jennie L. Ilustre
The all-volunteer World Health Ambassador Program (WHA), the lead coordinator for a big, multi-team, two-week medical and dental mission to Myanmar, recently announced the teams are continuing to raise funds for the project, estimated to cost about $75,000. Myanmar, formally known as Burma, is located in Southeast Asia.
Dr. Thien Do, WHA founder and CEO, also said in telephone and email interviews: “This will be a joint project between World Health Ambassador of Virginia, Hawaiian Eye Foundation, a surgical eye team from Hawaii, Boat Village Health Effort of the Benard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy in Shenandoah, Virginia, and Project Health International, an ophthalmology team from Minnesota. WHA is the lead program coordinator of this multi-team project.”
The mission is scheduled on March 28 to April 12 next year. WHA sent a survey team last March 25-31 to Myanmar in preparation for the big project, aimed at treating “approximately 2,000 patients.” The sites will be in Myanmar’s new capital city in Naypwita, Yangon and the surrounding region of Madalay.
Dr. Do said of the total cost of $75,000, WHA has targeted raising $50,000 as its contribution. He noted, “WHA is an all-volunteer organization and welcomes donations for this project and future missions.” Visit the WHA website at www.whausa.org for information on how to donate online.
“The multi-team is also currently raising funds to obtain 10 EKG machines and 10 non-invasive hemoglobin analyzer units to assist the Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association with health care clinics and its nationwide prenatal testing program,” said Dr. Do.
Mission Goals
The mission aims to provide medical and dental services and operations to communities in Myanmar and to provide surgical eye teaching program to Myanmar physicians.
The team will bring portable chemistry analyzer, blood count analyzer, urine analyzer, rapid test kits, EKG, Telemetry, portable ultrasound equipment, pulse oximetry.
Equipment requested by Myanmar: emoglobin analyzer, glucometer, urine analyzer and dipsticks, and EKG machines. WHA usually donates needed equipment to a host country.
Dr. Do said the all-volunteer team is composed of US-based and international general practitioners, medical specialists, general surgeons, anesthesiologist, dentists, dental assistants, pharmacists, nurses and non-health care support staff.
Dr. Do himself is the director of a multi-specialty medical facility located in Little River Turnpike in Annandale, Virginia, where he also serves as the lead staff cardiologist.
“Myanmar has recently opened up its country to the US and European countries after the visit there by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011,” he said. “WHA is very fortunate to be able to work with the Myanmar Maternal and Child Welfare Association and the Myanmar Ministry of Health. MMCWA is the largest non-governmental charity program in the country that has volunteer members in all villages and provinces of the country.”
Joint Medical Mission
This fall, WHA will have a joint medical and dental mission to Phan Thiet with the Big Big World (BBW). BBW is an orphanage provider based in Virginia. It has been sponsoring a small orphanage in Phan Thiet with educational funds and other financial and logistic support.
WHA will visit the orphanage, tentatively scheduled during the weekend of October 12 and 13, along with BBW members to provide medical and dental care. This is their first joint project together.
Dr. Do said, “We are also sending a small, advance medical team to the India in December this year to provide care for the Buddhist Monks residing in Bangalore, India.”
To date, WHA has completed medical and dental missions to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. In the US, it has also assisted in Hurricane Katrina medical relief efforts, as well as conducted health fairs in Mississippi and Dallas, Texas.
About WHA
World Health Ambassador Program (WHA) was founded in 2004. It provides medical and dental services to communities all over the world that are in desperate need of medical and dental assistance. It also assists in medical relief efforts for natural disasters in the US.
WHA seeks to offer its services to underserved communities overseas, regardless of ethnicity or religion. The international missions involve both providing medical and dental services, as well as medical and dental teaching at healthcare institutions in the host country.
In 2007, WHA became an independent 501(c)(3), non-profit organization, after several years as a pilot program of the Vietnamese American Medical Association. Currently, it has grown to nearly 290 members from the nation’s 15 states. It has members from Canada, he United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Egypt, India, Philippines, Vietnam and Australia.
The idea for WHA came to founder and CEO Thien Do in 1996, when he joined a humanitarian dental mission to a refugee camp in the Philippines. When word spread of his presence, others came up to see him, hoping he would help them, too.
He recalled: “I realized how much more I could do with real resources and manpower. That idea never left me. These fellow human beings were in desperate conditions and they reached out for help. I couldn’t turn my back on them.”
