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Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: Slimy officials in Thailand force international medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres to quit country after 36 years Fri Oct 07, 2011 5:10 pm | |
| BANGKOK: Provincial officials in Thailand have forced the international medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres to quit the country after 36 years, leaving thousands of migrants without access to a doctor.
Denis Penoy, MSF's head of mission in Thailand, said 70 doctors, nurses and other staff treating about 55,000 mainly Burmese unregistered migrants are being withdrawn because of a dispute with officials that had dragged on for months.
Mr Penoy said officials insisted on MSF teaching health education and prevention while his organisation wanted to do primary health care. There are an estimated 3 million migrants in Thailand, most of them from impoverished Burma. ''We wanted to cure patients but we were not allowed to do that,'' he said.
In recent years, MSF has trained Burmese who returned to Burma to work as mobile medical teams.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/doctors-group-quits-thailand-20111006-1lbq4.html |
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