Locals in remote Kyauktaw Twsp area face healthcare challenges

By Admin 01 Aug 2025

DMG Newsroom

1 August 2025, Kyauktaw

People living along the upper reaches of the Kaladan River in Kyauktaw Township, Arakan State, are facing health problems and challenges accessing timely medical care.

Ethnic Arakanese and Mro people from more than 10 villages including Khapaw, Marlar (Arakan), Marlar (Mro), Datphyu, Thanpayardaunt and Wetmakya are facing numerous difficulties due to the lack of healthcare workers in the villages, long distances and the high price of medicines.

"If someone is sick, we have to go by motorbike to call the nurses, who live far away," said Ko Nyi Nyi Law, an ethnic Mro man from Khapaw Village. "If the nurses cannot treat the patient, they have to go to Kyauktaw to be treated. What we are asking for is that there should be at least one nurse in the village. If there is a health emergency, it is difficult for us to call the nurses at night."

During the rainy season, mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria as well as influenza are common in villages along the Kaladan River, and locals say they have to travel to Kyauktaw on three-wheeled motorbikes, which cost hundreds of thousands of kyats to hire, to see a doctor.

Khapaw villagers are demanding that healthcare workers be sent as soon as possible because the locals are facing difficulties.

Locals say that when they have to go to the hospital for emergencies, they often have to borrow money from others in the village to cover the cost of treatment.

"The cost of treatment for one person to go to Kyauktaw is at least K200,000. Also, going to the clinic, which used to cost around K50,000, now costs over K100,000," said Ma Hla Win, an expectant mother from Marlar Village.

The villages along the Kaladan River are densely forested, mosquito-borne diseases are common, and limited livelihood options mean villagers depend on the forests for food. A local woman from Tinma, one such village, died of malaria on May 24.