Only one hospital in Myanmar is fully equipped to treat children with cancer.
For most families, the journey to access lifesaving healthcare takes between 12 hours and three days.
Myanmar is facing a devastating civil war, and the situation is incredibly difficult. Travelling across the country is extremely dangerous, but children fighting cancer still need access to treatment.
Our 2016 and 2018 research studies showed that 89% of families with a seriously ill child have to rely on loans to cover the costs of transport, medical exams, and medicines, which, on average, amount to 30 times their monthly income. Many go without food or even sell their houses to pay for the lengthy journeys. When these solutions become unsustainable, they’re forced to stop the treatment – meaning that hundreds of children in Myanmar are dying of cancer every year.
Since 2015, we’ve been working in partnership with World Child Cancer and Yangon Children’s Hospital to make these life-changing journeys possible – whether it’s providing a family with the money they need to access public transport or offering private transport in remote areas.
So far, we offered over 7,500 journeys to and from hospital.
At just three years old Myo was diagnosed with leukaemia. Getting treatment was a struggle from the beginning, but things got even harder when her father abandoned the family – leaving no money for the long journey to the hospital.
