Myanmar: Health System

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure, as always, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and to very much agree with his points in terms of the need for more diplomatic action on sanctions on aviation fuel and small steps we can take to stop the flow of arms that are being used to repress the Burmese population. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for securing this debate. Unfortunately, I was not on that call with the nurses but, given what I heard today, I can only pay tribute to them. I have encountered other people in similar situations who can be utterly amazing.

My connection is that I was in Rakhine state in the late 1990s, up country in the amazing archaeological site of Mrauk-U, where the only other westerners in town were two Médecins Sans Frontières doctors. That was a testimony to the state of the medical system then in that poverty-stricken part of Burma.

I do not wish to repeat the points that others have made but will focus on two issues. One of them arises from what I was doing last night: I was with the High Commissioners of Barbados and Bangladesh, the Ineos Oxford Institute, the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and the APPG on Antimicrobial Resistance. The meeting was preparing for the forthcoming high-level meeting in September of the General Assembly on the issue of antimicrobial resistance. I wish to cross-reference that with a couple of matters. One is the fact that there is increasing research coming mostly out of the Middle East that shows how AMR can be amplified by the impact of modern, heavy weapons, involving heavy metals going into the environment. That can induce resistance to antibiotics in microbes in the environment. There is also an increasingly amount of research that shows how AMR is strongly related to conflict. Obviously, that is partly due to the breakdown of medical systems, wounds that become infected for long periods, and so on. However, there is also increasing understanding about the impact of weapons.

As regards the issue of antimicrobial resistance, a figure that I suspect may shock even the knowledgeable noble Lords in this Committee is that about 50% of medical facilities in the world do not have running water. Wash water and sanitation are crucial. One would think that they are basic in 2024 but I have no doubt that these fundamental issues are enormous in Burma.

My direct question to the Minister—I will understand if he does not have an answer now—is: what are the Government doing as regards three key matters in the AMR area in terms of Burma? What is being done to support the provision of wash facilities, water and sanitation? What can be done to support provision of the appropriate antibiotics? Often in those situations, people just buy whatever antibiotics they can find, which may amplify problems. What can be done to increase the capacity for diagnostics that can operate at a small level, so that, crucially, one can test infections and find what antibiotics they are susceptible to and which they are resistant to? Then one can use the correct antibiotics. So, either now or later, perhaps the Minister can tell me of any work being done in that AMR space, which is getting much global focus this year, in terms of Burma.

I want to look at that, too, in the broader sense. I was in Burma many years ago with the World Health Organization, looking at the process of writing a report on women’s health. One of my more unusual claims to fame is that I appeared on the front page of the New Light of Myanmar shaking hands with the Health Minister. One might say that that was the previous junta’s propaganda rag. I did not have any choice in that. However, seriously, my question is about focus on women’s health and the efforts being made. We know that that issue is crucial to the health of whole communities but it often gets ignored. Rather more broadly, the focus on women’s education and the provision of support for women in those conflict zones and circumstances can be tremendously difficult.

Just as an example, some women from Afghanistan who I have heard from recently were working very hard to provide education—where girls are being denied it—by Zoom. Those technological means are open practically anywhere now. Is any work being done to support women’s education in Burma?