It’s mid-morning on the Thai-Burma border and amid the constant flow of people pouring into Mae Tao Clinic looking for health care is a barefoot girl carrying a feverish infant, half her own height.
Photo: HEROIC EFFORT Youngster plays mum.
The girl, Choo, shuffles and pushes her way to the front of the long queue that stops in front of a white-coated medic in the Children’s Outpatient Department.
May Soe, the senior medic and manager of the department, looks up and asks: "Where’s your mother?"
Choo hitches the slipping child onto her hip before saying: "Ma’s died, I’m mother now."
May Soe was shocked by Choo’s response, but did not have time to take it further, as the infant needed urgent medical assistance.
"Choo’s baby sister, Wai, was very sick with malaria, she was dehydrated and also anemic. She urgently needed a blood transfusion and we had to get her onto a saline drip."
May Soe is concerned about the welfare of both children.
"I’m worried they have no mother. I’m worried that a 12-year-old, carrying a seriously sick infant, had to travel so far without the protection of an adult."
May Soe says getting to the clinic from inside Burma is difficult for adults at the best of times.
"It took the kids at least six hours to get here from their home. There are many army checkpoints to get around. There are many people who take advantage of children. Choo had no money and no one to help. The kids arrived with only the clothes they were wearing."
Choo explained to Spectrum why she came to the Mae Tao Clinic: "Wai was sick for five days. She was hot, crying all the time. There was no money to get medicine. I was worried, I was scared, I thought she would die like Ma did if I didn’t take her to Thailand. Many people in the village told me to take her to Dr Cynthia’s."
When Choo left home it was still early morning.
"It was dark, no lights, the sun was sleeping."
Choo tells how scared she was when her mother died two years ago.
"Wai was six months old. Ma was sick, she went to the toilet all the time. She couldn’t get better. She took medicine, but nothing worked. She died."
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