OUR WORK IN 2024

Many in Myanmar are without access to the affordable care that they need. The  Access to Health Fund’s role as a critical funder of health services is now more important than ever – and the Fund continues to make adjustments to its activities and approaches, in order to remain responsive to needs on the ground.

The Access to Health Fund is committed to supporting Myanmar’s health system, ensuring activities bridge critical health gaps, and safeguarding vulnerable populations' right to adequate health care, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, gender, age, financial situation or geographic location. The Fund supports inclusive, participatory processes, people-centred approaches, and local health programmes which respect and promote the rights, dignity and safety of Myanmar’s most vulnerable communities.

How the Fund is Continuing to Support Health Care in Myanmar

We support our implementing partners to remain flexible amidst a challenging context so that they can continue delivering lifesaving and essential services, and pivot and adapt activities to meet immediate needs.

Expanded Emergency Referrals: Emergency referrals are one of the key ways that the Access to Health Fund and our partners help people access the emergency care that they need. With limited health services available, the Fund has expanded its referral support to include broader health needs and support for referral to private clinics and services where necessary.

Health Care over the Phone: In difficult times, health counselling provided over the phone can be an important way to ensure access to health information and consultation services. Some of our partners offer hotline counselling for health emergencies, focusing on remote and vulnerable communities. This makes sure that people can speak to health professionals about any health issue or concern, and receive advice on when they should seek in-person care.

Support to Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Services: Our partners now focus more on GBV cases and support through local networks. This includes awareness-raising and prevention of GBV, as well as supporting GBV referral services. The community-level support also covers emergency health referrals, which strengthen community-level health responses. Partners have also received training in the provision of GBV care via UNFPA.

Inspiring Health Workers Continue to Save Lives: Community volunteers play a crucial role in ensuring access to health services during periods of instability and restricted external access to communities. Our partners support and supervise community health volunteers to, for example, raise awareness on sexual and reproductive health rights, conduct screenings for malnutrition in children, offer counseling on newborn and child feeding practices, and test for communicable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.                                                                        

U Biak*, a 45-year-old integrated community malaria volunteer, comes from a very hard-to-reach village where local people's access to health services for infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis is extremely limited. Despite these challenges, one of Access to Health’s partners managed to organize a basic training for integrated community malaria volunteers in U Biak’s village in order to continue providing essential services through local volunteers. As malaria was prevalent in the village at the time, U Biak eagerly participated in the training. With support from the partner, he continued to provide health support in his village and was able to refer severe cases to the nearest community clinic for timely treatment. “If I did not get a chance to join the training, malaria cases could have been worse in my village. Some might even have died as it was very difficult to get anti-malaria drugs in the local market.” *Name has been changed.                                                                                 

Support for Internally Displaced People: It is estimated that there are more than three million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar and some 18.6 million people, more than a third of the population, now require humanitarian assistance. IDPs face restrictions of movement, difficult living conditions and a lack of basic assistance, such as food, shelter, medicine, health care, and other essential items. Access to Health continues to support access to essential and lifesaving emergency healthcare for those displaced, through our partners’ mobile and fixed clinics, and referral support.