Mandalay Region - Health Care

Health Care

The general state of health care in Myanmar is poor. The military government spends between 0.5% to 3% of the country's GDP on health care, consistently ranking among the lowest in the world. Although health care is nominally free, in reality patients have to pay for medicine and treatment even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals lack many of the basic facilities and equipment. The following is a summary of the public health system in the division, in the fiscal year 2002-2003.

In 2005, Mandalay Region's public health care system had slightly over 1000 doctors and about 2000 nurses working in 44 hospitals and 44 health clinics. Over 30 of the hospitals had less than 100 beds. Since almost all of large public hospitals and private hospitals, and doctors are located in Mandalay, these low numbers for a division with 7.7 million are actually even worse in the rest of the division, though these figures are believed to have improved by the advent of Naypyidaw as the nation's capital in 2006 although the level of improvement remains unreported. The well-to-do bypass the public health system and go to private clinics in Mandalay or Yangon in order to receive quicker medical attention and high-quality service. The wealthy routinely go abroad (usually Bangkok or Singapore) for treatment.