Category: Hospitals & Healthcare

Care for peace: It was a humble quid-pro-quo idea that couldn’t fail … or could it?

The idea was that our Marin-based nonprofit, aptly named Care for Peace, would help the underserved villagers in one rural township in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) build, manage and operate their own sustainable health center.

Our grand vision was, and still is, that there is a direct correlation between providing “care” through public health, education and economic development services to the underserved people of the world, and the “peace” desired by government and the people.

The Care for Peace mission got off to a great start five years ago when we selected a remote township to build our first solar-powered health center that now awaits telecom and televideo connectivity to medical facilities in Myanmar and the Center for Telehealth at the University of Virginia in the United States.

Our agreement with the Union government is that, once completed, the tele-connected health center will be replicated in at least 250 rural townships nationwide.

Until earlier this year, everything went along according to plan when it became apparent that our development mission needed to be set aside in favor of helping the government address the horrific Rohingya refugee crisis of some 1.2 million destitute refugees who are currently overflowing Myanmar into Bangladesh.

In 2012, we met with the newly-assigned U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar, the World Food Programme country director and resident representative, and the World Bank country manager, among others, all of whom were very positive about our desire to help build Myanmar’s health care infrastructure in the rural areas where both care and peace are needed most.

However, we were also apprised of the cold truth that Myanmar is a failed nation trying to struggle back into the family of nations after a half century under a brutal totalitarian regime not that different from the conditions in North Korea.

We knew what we were getting into.

Today, in much the same way the first responders attacked the recent Santa Rosa wildfires, many international non-government emergency response organizations, like the International Rescue Committee, are doing everything in their power to help deal with the overwhelming Rohingya humanitarian emergency.

My thought is that while the Myanmar government and their international advisers develop a long-range strategy for a peaceful solution to the problem, and while the emergency crews eventually wind down their life-saving activities, many small interdisciplinary “Care Teams” comprised of Myanmar citizens should be employed to begin working with Rohingya families for as long as it takes to ensure each Rohingya person is able to pursue the same opportunities as everyone else in a truly free democratic society.

If invited, Care for Peace is prepared to amend its long-term health center development mission, to continue working with our dear friends at all levels of government and field in Myanmar, and to help create, train and manage the care teams and their partner Rohingya families.

I wouldn’t be so optimistic during this dark time in Myanmar had I not come to the scene with a vision that “care for peace” is the antidote to “killing for peace” wherever human-inflicted pain and suffering occurs in the world.

Myanmar’s drive towards democratization could crumble under the weight of its Rohingya problems.

Even if that happens I truly believe that “care for peace” will long endure, even if Care for Peace does not.

Friends, donors and potential donors alike have asked me to explain how Care for Peace, a Marin-based nonprofit, is able to continue building a prototype “Healthy Village” in rural Myanmar (Burma), while the publicized persecution of the Myanmar government towards a nationless minority of 1.1 million refugees must certainly be affecting our progress.

The current situation in Myanmar does not affect our progress.

Care for Peace is fortunate to have donors who understand the inseparable connection between care and peace. Providing care through public health, education and enterprise services to the underserved people of the world results in greater peace within and between nations.

Our Healthy Village project is not that much different from what many other non-government organizations are doing throughout Myanmar and the world to provide relief and development opportunities to people who live within or near conflicts, abject poverty or shifting political landscapes.

There is a great need for our Healthy Village project, since most in Myanmar are distressingly lacking even the most basic health care.

Of the 53 million people who live there, 35 million (67 percent) are impoverished villagers.

According to the United Nations ranking of health systems, life expectancy is low, ranking at 170 of 191 countries.

About 35 percent of children under the age of five have stunted growth.

Among developing nations, people in rural Myanmar are among the poorest, hungriest, least educated, and geographically isolated.

Care for Peace has already succeeded in bringing the Healthy Village concept to fruition. Thanks to the generosity of our board and advisors, The Porter Foundation and The Vimy Foundation, we are now serving rural villagers with our Mobile Health Van.

Happily, we have also built the prototype Healthy Village Rural Health Center that will be surrounded by schools, community and senior centers, housing, agriculture and aquaculture farms, stock animal ranches, and micro-economy businesses.

Myanmar is a “new country” that is only four years into emerging from a totalitarian military state to a democratic union.

Peace hangs in the balance. It is the resolve of Care for Peace to help tip the balance. It’s all in the name: “Care for Peace.”

To care with our hearts and provide care with our hands is what makes the process of attaining peace worthwhile.

It must be.

Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, Mother Teresa, among other notable caregivers, will always be remembered for how they helped relieve pain and suffering, and helped bring peace to millions of sick, wounded and impoverished people.

Peace may be the highest achievement of the human spirit. The Nobel Peace Prize is the most respected award in the world bestowed on an individual or group for having actively initiated a process that promotes peace.

John Lennon’s timeless message “Give Peace a Chance” is the song of choice for war protestors. And “Rest in Peace” is our farewell wish for loved ones.

To care for peace is to accept the principle that a society that is dedicated to caring is the most rewarding path to lasting peace.

Upon completion of our first project, Care for Peace has agreed to facilitate the development of as many Healthy Villages throughout Myanmar as there are villages prepared to build their own sustainable care communities.

It all starts with one Healthy Village.

It takes a whole village to change the world.

Compiled by Hla Kyi, Dr. Don Simborg, Dr. Patricia Salber, Dr. David Holbrooke, Kathryn Johnson, Carol Patterson, Hla Kyi and Jeff Hardy

 The political relationship between the United States and Myanmar worsened after the 1988 military coup and violent suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations.  However, following signs of liberalization, the US government began the process of improving its links with Myanmar in 2011.

 In February 2011, Tyler Darland, President of PMI International and Hla Kyi, Vice President of PMI International contacted Jeff Hardy requesting that he review the design of a hospital proposed to be built in Myanmar.  Jeff (founder and now President of C4P), is a 30-year veteran in healthcare systems, service and facility planning and design.  He facilitated innovative and widely publicized management operations and new-facility development services for over 120 hospitals all over the US.  Clients included Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare West, Columbia/HCA Healthcare, Adventist Healthcare Systems, Disney Celebration Health, et al.  Internationally, Jeff developed hospitals and healthcare systems for Kaiser Foundation International in the Bahamas, Bahrain, Curacao N.A., and the United Arab Republics, et al.    

Most recently,  Jeff led new facility development initiatives for the International Medical Center in Hanoi, Vietnam, the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, the Mobile Public Health Program in Delta State, Nigeria, and the Matibabu Hospital in Ukwala, Kenya.

After the United States formally eased sanctions on Myanmar with the three basic humanitarian assistances including Health Care support in July 2012, Mr. Tyler Darland and Mr. Hla Kyi went to Myanmar to give a message from Mr. Jeff to Myanmar President office about willing to support humanitarian Health Care, and then the President Office directed to Ministry of Health, as a result  the Deputy Minister and Officials met with Mr. Tyler and Mr. Hla Kyi, and then follow up meeting with Dr. Than Sein. Subsequent discussions with Jeff led to a visit to the US by Dr. Than Sein on behalf of the president of Myanmar to look at several US hospitals.

Tyler Darland, Hla Kyi, Jeff Hardy and Linda Tavasi, CEO of the Marin Community Clinic hosted the visit.  Based on this visit, the group decided to work together to help develop the Myanmar National Health System.  Dr. Sein went back to Myanmar and founded the People’s Health Foundation (PHF).  Jeff Hardy, with the guidance and support of the first C4P Board Chairman, Dr. David Holbrooke, founded C4P.  Tyler Darland and Hla Kyi joined the C4P administration and Linda Tavasi became a Board Member of C4P.

In August 2012, Jeff, Tyler Darland and Hla Kyi met with Dr. Sein and the Myanmar Minister of Health, the Hon. Pe Thet Khin, to draft a Cooperative Agreement between C4P, the PHF and the Ministry of Health to collaborate in developing the Myanmar National Health System.  The agreement was signed in October 2012.

Also in October 2012 the Myanmar Ministry of Health engaged Jeff and C4P to design one prototype “Mini-Medical Center (MMC)” in Rakhine State, Myanmar, that will exist as a showcase facility for considering potential implementation strategy for the next few MMCs to be built in Rakhine State.  While the long-range vision is to build 250 MMCs where they are needed most in rural Myanmar, prudence dictates next-step planning will need to be carefully organized to ensure sufficient time and attention is given to any village interested in the slow-but-steady process of development required for securing success…and avoiding failure.

Original article published in Marin Independent Journal.

I HAVE BEEN getting increasingly perplexed every time I hear the presidential contestants tell us what they’re going to do about health-care costs, universal health care, or national health “insurance,” or is it a national health-care plan? Something like that. I can’t remember.

If most people are like me, they are shaking their heads and thinking, “Oh Great: National health insurance bureaucracy instead of corporate health insurance bureaucracy. You gotta be kidding. But what’s the alternative? Is there an alternative?

In “Sicko,” filmmaker Michael Moore exposed the draconian bureaucracy of health “insurance” companies for what it is.

It’s all about money.

It’s about who gets access to health care and who gets denied.

It’s about what you get for your money and what you don’t get.

It’s about having to make decisions about your health that are forced upon you by cost factors that are beyond your ability to pay.

It’s about how much you have to pay and how the insurance companies balk at paying the rest.

And, of course, it’s about filling out forms and jumping through bureaucratic hoops.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Health insurance is also about quality care if you know where to find it, how to get it or how to sue them into giving it to you after you are told you can’t have it.

In short, health insurance of any color, shape or form is about barriers to entry, barriers to medical care and barriers to the fat wallets of insurance companies.

And we’re going to allow our next president to nationalize this?

There is an alternative.

What we need on a national scale is universal health-care assurance.

It’s all about care.

We need to be assured that when we are sick, are hit with a scary disease or get into a bad accident, we will be given the best care by the best doctors and clinical specialists in the best hospitals and health centers in the world.

We need to be assured that America, the “can do” country, will develop a care delivery system that is even better than what you get in Canada, France, England or any other country that already assures health care for all.

And, of course, we need to be assured that we won’t have to fill out forms and jump through hoops just to get the care we need.

I am not going to be presumptuous and suggest that I know exactly how we are going to pay for universal health-care assurance. What I would suggest is that the presidential contenders at least recognize the vast difference between a health “insurance” business model and a health “assurance” public health model.

At best, the contenders should showcase any one of a thousand different kinds of public health models already serving the needy throughout the country and the world, such as the “model” Linda Tavaszi, board chairwoman of the nonprofit Marin Community Clinic, is using to assure health care is provided to low-income children and adults throughout the county. Then there are the county-based mental health programs, national vaccination and STD-tracking programs and federal health-care aid to developing countries and many more.

The bottom line is this: There’s a big difference between healthcare “insurance” and “assurance” of care when you need it. The two words don’t even belong together in the same sentence because the only people health-care “insurance” “assures” are the stockholders in the insurance companies.

We may be a nation with 43 million uninsured, including 10 million children, but we are actually a nation of 303 million un-assured that includes everyone.

We need to be assured that our next president knows the difference.

Jeff Hardy is a health-care futurist and hospital planning and management consultant. His email: jeff@carforpeace.org.