Traditional beliefs and modern improvements

Student presentation on medication. 

In some of the villages of Burma they believe that if a women touches cold water after birth she will get sick. The education of the Barefoot Dr students that germs cause illness not cold water will help many people. Many villages do not have access to heated water unless it is warmed over a fire.  So avoiding cold water to bathe may mean not bathing or staying clean as much as they should right after giving birth. If they do not get clean the risk of infection increases significantly.

Another tradition in some of the villages is to cover the mother’s skin with Turmeric after giving birth. This probably does nothing to help but will also not be harmful so we did not discourage this tradition. Our job is to educate on facts not change their culture. In fact the goal of this program is to enhance their quality of life while preserving their unique culture and not change it to a western model.

One shocking and good development is that 9 of the student reported having government-sponsored midwives in their villages! In the past there were none. This is real progress. The students will attempt to work with any other healthcare workers in their areas and do not want to be seen as competition but as allies.

Attached is a picture of shocking news to us that most of the students villages now have their children vaccinated against polio and other childhood illnesses! This is great news and never happened with our past students. The audience response system allows us to get this important information very quickly from all the student at one time. This would take an unreasonable amount of time to poll the students on all these topics without this audience response system.

Dr. Bjorn shocked at the improved vaccination rate for polio!