Ni Lar Htway
Ni Lar Htway’s family live in Burma in Kaw Ka Rate Township. Her parents work as farmers for a living. They own their own farm and have some paddies. They sell their produce to get money for their family’s everyday cost of living. They only earn enough money to pay for food and other household expenses. Ni Lar Htway has one older brother who is twelve years old and one younger sister who is seven years old. They all go to school. When their mother brought Ni Lar Htway to MTC, her grandmother agreed to look after the other children so that her father could continue to work.Ni Lar Htway’s mother first noticed her child’s health problem in March 2009. Ni Lar Htway told her mother that she cannot see clearly. She told her mother she had poor vision when reading and that she was feeling aches and pains. One week later her mother brought her daughter to Pha An Hospital in Burma. There the doctor told them that they needed to go to Rangoon Hospital. In the meantime, the doctor gave them some medicine and eye drops to use. It cost them 15,000 kyat (US$15), but her condition did not improve. They did not bring Ni Lar Htway to Rangoon Hospital as they could not afford the journey and the hospital costs. They asked someone from there town, who had been to MTC before, about the clinic. They informed them that an eye doctor would come to MTC in March, so they decided to make the journey to Thailand to try and get Ni Lar Htway treatment. It cost them 5,000 kyat (US$5) each to get to MTC. Ni Lar Htway’s mother says it is very difficult for her to get her child treatment because of all the costs associated with getting treatment in Burma and the traveling costs to the clinic. When she came to MTC she borrowed the money to cover the costs for transportation, she says she will need to repay this money later. When they are at Mae Tao Clinic they stay in the clinic patient house which houses and feeds them for free.
At Mae Tao Clinic, the doctor told them that they would need to send her to Mae Sot Hospital, the local hospital. There she was told her condition was too complex to treat in Mae Sot. They informed them that she would need to go to Chiang Mai for treatment. There is no way the family can afford this and they need the support of the Burma Children Medical Fund and donors to ensure that she gets the surgery she desperately needs to restore her quality of life.
Ni Lar Htway’s mother says she hopes her child gets better so that she can continue her education. She says she hopes her child can become a teacher or a medic. Ni Lar Htway says that she is in pain, her eye aches on her right side and she has poor vision. She says if she gets better she went to return to school and become a teacher.
Previous page: Pyin Thein
Next page: Aung Than Kyaw