Mae Tao Clinic Update

There is a certain magic to spending a day, or more at Mae Tao Clinic. Many have told me how just one short visit has impacted their view on the border situation. Anyone interested in seeing the clinic for themselves are invited to contact me. Dates are still tentative but the next time I’m there will likely be in mid-February.

On 17 December CMIRC members Tom Johnson, Bob Carroll, Christian Bollier and Jerry Nelson visited the Mae Tao Clinic. Highlights of the day included:

A very brief hello with Dr. Cynthia was the last thing that happened before we retired for the evening with our heads overloaded with information and our hearts bursting with admiration for what has been and what is being accomplished at the Mae Tao Clinic . Let’s go back to the morning and take you through the day.

When we arrived, Christian and is ingenious friend Steve Mallow went directly to the Children’s recreation room to prepare for Mae Tao’s fist performance of the Babar game. Later in the morning, those of us who were touring the clinic had the opportunity to see the first performance. It was marvelous, the children had a great time!

The Children Playing with their masks

The Game Participants

The rest of us were taken on a tour of the clinic, which offers a wide variety of services. Rather than trying to explain all this in one article, I invite those readers who are not familiar with Mae Tao Clinic to visit their website and Facebook page.

My favorite stop is always the new born babies. Here I find hope in the renewal of life. This trip I met Se Sen Kro who was then a mere 6 hours of age. Her older sister was also born in the clinic; she is now in grade 4.

When we visited the prosthetics lab we noticed on the board that only one patient this month was there because of a recent loss of a leg. The rest were receiving replacements (Most prosthetic legs are worn out and must be replaced in approximately a year).

After lunch we toured the new clinic area. The progress in just the last 6 weeks is remarkable.

Tom, Bob and Christian with the new clinic in the background.

The last big stop was the Child Development Center, a learning center for more than 800 students. We met briefly with the two of the teachers and the principle. The CDC is a part of the Mae Tao Clinic child protection initiative.

CMIRC is the host club for a Rotary global grant, the aim of which is to finish the waste water management system for the new Mae Tao Clinic. Construction is underway, and progress is excellent.

Waste Water Management System 26 October 2015

Waste Water Management System 17 December 2015

The grant, GG1634691, has been officially submitted to the Rotary Foundation. We are expecting the decision within the next few days.

After the tour we had the opportunity to meet with Kevina Maddock, the funding manager at Mae Tao and were reminded that 2015 is the first year that the Mae Tao Clinic has a board of directors to oversee the future of this critical humanitarian effort. Everyone who understands even a little about the situation realizes that the clinic will serve a critical need for many years to come. We started a discussion about what might be the next effort on behalf of CMIRC to support this most worthy cause.

I am blessed to have the opportunity to know these real life angels. Many are highly trained medical professionals who work for free or accept only a small stipend.