Our History
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Planet Care
801 Cedar Street
Suite 200
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-594-4027
info@planetcare.org
Dr. Ben Brown on the border. In 1989, with the help of a map sketched on a napkin, Ben Brown found Dr. Cynthia Maung's refugee clinic in Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burma border. He helped Dr. Cynthia, who had recently fled Burma herself, treat sick villagers in a small wooden building with dirt floors, without medical books or diagnostic tools except a thermometer, a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope. With a small cadre of refugee medics Ben went on mobile missions into border villages cut off from access to medical care by the war.
Today, with help from Planet Care and other groups working along the border, the small wooden building has been transformed into a bustling medical village and teaching hospital that treats more than 30,000 patients a year, and trains most of the medics and midwives who work in the border area. An entire force of backpack and village medics risk their lives to travel to remote villages that would otherwise receive no care.
The Mae Tao Clinic today.Though much has changed along the border, a few things have remained the same. The war sadly continues, creating public health risks that impact millions of children, women and men inside Burma and in the refugee camps on the border. Dr. Cynthia continues as an inspiration, dedicated to alleviating the suffering of her people, and Planet Care is carrying on with its mission to provide humanitarian relief to the people of Burma.
Planet Care's primary focus is the children and mothers along the Thai-Burma border. We concentrate our resources on supporting three major programs: the medical relief work of Dr. Cynthia Maung and her Mae Tao Clinic, the Mae Sot School and orphanage, which provides care and education for more than 250 displaced children, and the backpack and village medics who venture into the jungle to save people who can't make it to an established clinic. Planet Care has partnered with the doctors of the Global Health Access Program (GHAP) to make all of our projects a success. These doctors make frequent trips to the border to provide training and supplies to our joint programs. Additionally, Planet Care initiates and supports other projects that meet urgent needs.
[Learn more about the Mae Tao Clinic]
[Learn more about the Mae Sot School]
Copyright Planet Care
