User:Tilmanalexander/Swimming Doctors

Swimming Doctors is an aid project of the non-profit German foundation Stiftunglife. It serves the medical and dental care of the population in the Irrawaddy delta in southern Myanmar.

The project was launched after Cyclone Nargis in 2008. The hurricane claimed thousands of deaths in Myanmar and paralysed medical care in the delta of the country's Irrawaddy. The former entrepreneur and founder of the Foundation Life, Jürgen Gessner, made it possible to convert a cargo ship into a hospital ship for the equivalent of 250,000 US dollars. Swimming Doctors 1, which was commissioned in 2010, became the first of three German-funded ships operating under the name of the Swimming Doctors with a local crew. In 2013, the construction of a new ship, the Swimming Doctors 2, started. The construction cost the equivalent of 350,000 US dollars. The ship was baptised by Daniela Schadt, the partner of the then Federal President Joachim Gauck and put into service in August 2014. The previous ship Swimming Doctors 1 was given to another aid organisation.

Since November 2016, the Swimming Doctors 3 is in use. The Swimming Doctors 2 was given to the Artemed-Foundation, which continues to use it in the same application.

The 33-meter-long ship offers the crew medical and dental examination rooms, an operating room, a laboratory, a pharmacy and sleeping facilities. The running costs for the operation of the ship amount to the equivalent of $110,000 a year, which are funded by donors from Germany. The patients pay the equivalent of 1€ for the diagnosis and treatment, insolvent patients are exempted from the costs. On the ship are 2 Burmese general practitioners, 2 dentists, 2 dental assistants, 3 sisters and 10 sailors. The team is repeatedly supported by volunteer German doctors and dentists who train their Burmese colleagues in missions over several weeks on board. The ship departs 12 times a year on the 1st of the month from its home port in Yangon, Myanmar and supplies 8 centrally located villages around the city of Kyailat within 3 weeks on a fixed route.

The number of patients in 2016 was 13,300, rising to 18,400 in 2018. Around two-thirds of patients visit the ship for medical problems, and a third for dental problems. In addition, work will be carried out with the local midwives and caries prophylaxis programs will be carried out in schools along the shipping route. 45% of the patients were women, 20% men and 35% children.


 * Dieter Buhtz: Unterwegs mit den Swimming Doctors, Bericht in vier Teilen, Zahnärztliche Mitteilungen, 22. Dezember 2017 (Teil 1, Teil 2, Teil 3, Teil 4)