YANGON (UCAN): Father Henry Eikhlein, executive coordinator of the Myanmar Catholic Church Humanitarian Assistance Initiatives [MCHAI], said that the Catholic Church will play an active role in responding to Covid-19 coronavirus [SARS-CoV-2] crisis and offering humanitarian assistance across the country.
Father Eikhlein said priority would be given to conducting awareness programmes, opening care centres and providing much-needed oxygen supplies.
Charles Cardinal Bo of Yangon, and other bishops along with priests, religious, medical doctors and laypeople set up MCHAI in response to the pandemic.
The initiative comes as a third wave of infections devastates Myanmar, already on its knees after the military toppled the elected civilian leaders and seized power on February 1 [Sunday Examiner, February 7]. The ensuing turmoil and protests have thrown the country’s pandemic response into chaos.
In Yangon, St. Joseph’s Catholic Major Seminary has been converted into a care centre and currently accommodates 50 people who are in serious condition and needing oxygen support. More beds are being arranged to accommodate up to 70 people as over 50 people have been on the waiting list, Church officials said.
Another 50 people have been admitted in the Epiphany Church compound, while a seminary in Thanlyin, a nearby port town, is being converted into a care centre.
More centers are being opened in Myitkyina, Lashio and Taungngu.
Karuna [Caritas] Myanmar is also coordinating with Medical Action Myanmar [MAM], a non-government organisation that provides medical care including oxygen supplies in Church-run care centres.
The military junta-controlled Health Ministry has put the daily case load at an average of 6,000 and 200 deaths, but medics and charitable groups say the real figures are higher. People have to queue for many hours for oxygen in several cities including Yangon, Mandalay and Kalay, while seriously ill patients die at home amid the junta’s neglect of the health system.
Cardinal Bo has appealed for the country’s rulers to be “good shepherds” and save the people. “These are apocalyptic times: starvation, struggle for oxygen, long queues in the cemeteries and the persisting virus of conflict and poverty of our people,” he said in a homily on July 25.
“Unless there is peace, hundreds will be buried every day. Peace is the only vaccine against what is turning into an apocalypse of death and disease,” the cardinal said.
Father Robert Mg Ba of the Diocese of Kalay, which has turned a pastoral centre into a care center looking after 11 patients on oxygen support, said that getting 24 hours of electricity was a big challenge.
“We have 30 beds and have even set up oxygen concentrators but cannot admit more patients due to the electricity problem,” Father Mg Ba lamented.
