Chit Su Phyo, 33, was eight months pregnant when she suddenly developed a fever. When it became clear that she had contracted Covid-19, a frantic quest began to save her life and those of her unborn twins.
Over the next 10 days, she and her husband, 34-year-old Yan Naing Soe, went to one hospital after another. Armed only with a referral letter from a government healthcare centre, they pleaded for help that was never forthcoming.
They tried Yangon General Hospital, the Phaung Gyi Covid-19 Centre, and the Thingangyun, North Okkalapa and Insein township hospitals, only to be told that they were all full.
Finally, after a few more failed attempts, they went to their eighth, and last, hospital: the Yangon Central Women’s Hospital in Lanmadaw Township. There, they were told, they would surely be accepted.
But when they were turned away once again, they had no choice but to give up and go home. It was on this return journey that Chit Su Phyo’s condition grew precipitously worse.
As they were making their way through the city in a vehicle operated by a local charity, the oxygen tank that they carried with them ran out of the precious commodity that she needed to stay alive. Her oxygen saturation level dropped to 60% before plunging to 31%—far below the minimum level of 94% needed to sustain the body’s basic functions.
They raced back as quickly as they could, but they were too late. Chit Su Phyo was still breathing, though just barely, when they reached their door, but Yan Naing Soe couldn’t get to their spare 40-liter tank in time to save her.
“It destroyed me,” he said, describing the moment he realized he had lost his wife and their two soon-to-be-born babies.
‘Don’t even know what to say’
Myanmar’s Covid-19 crisis has become a full-blown national tragedy, devastating a country already in the throes of massive political unrest. But even in the midst of so much misery, Chit Su Phyo’s story has struck a chord with many.
Seint Aye Say, the charity group based in Hlaing Township that took Chit Su Phyo and her husband to the hospital that day, released a statement on social media that deeply affected many who read it.
Describing the final moments in the life of the young mother-to-be, it said that a volunteer was performing CPR on her when she finally succumbed to Covid-19.
“The twins in her womb kept struggling, until both they and their mother were lost due to a lack of doctors and hospitals,” the group said in its statement.
Min Ye Htin, a 23-year-old volunteer with Seint Aye Say, captured the mood of many when he expressed his feelings about the episode.
“We couldn’t save them. I don’t even want to do charity work anymore. I have no strength to even answer calls,” he wrote on his Facebook page, frankly sharing his growing despair over the apparent indifference of medical professionals to the plight of people fighting for their lives.
“I only have one wish. It’s for the doctors to just come out to take a look at the patient, even if they can’t let them in,” he later told Myanmar Now.
For his part, Yan Naing Soe said he was speechless at the treatment he and his wife had received from those charged with caring for those in need of medical assistance.
“I don’t even know what to say. We had a referral letter, but we didn’t get to see a single doctor. We were just rejected at the door,” he said.
Anxious mothers
According to the 2014 census, roughly 2,000 babies are born in Myanmar every day. This means that many expecting mothers are among those falling ill with Covid-19 or not receiving the care they need because of the pandemic. It comes as no surprise, then, that Chit Su Phyo’s story is not unique.
In Yangon alone, at least three pregnant women died in a single week last month due to the public health crisis, Myanmar Now learned by contacting social service organizations in the city. Like Chit Su Phyo, they had tried but failed to find a hospital willing to admit them as their condition grew worse.
One of these women was Aye Thazin, a 24-year-old resident of Rakhine Yoe Lay, a village in Yangon Region’s Htantabin Township.
She was referred to a hospital in Yangon by her doctor at the township hospital in Htantabin because of complications from her pregnancy. However, when she arrived at the hospital, she was turned away on suspicion of having Covid-19, according to Kyaw Zin Ko, a volunteer who had tried to help her.
She was then taken to another hospital, where she was again refused admission.
“The receptionist told us that they were closing, so they couldn’t let us in. They said there were no doctors available, so if we really wanted to have her admitted, we should speak to the hospital administrator. But that never happened, because he was too busy talking to the authorities on a video conference call,” Kyaw Zin Ko recalled.
At around 4:30pm that day, Aye Thazin passed out in the hospital’s parking lot. She never recovered consciousness and died soon after.
For Kyin Lay, a 32-year-old resident of Yangon’s Thingangyun Township, such stories are a source of enormous anxiety. As an expecting mother, she worries that she will also be denied care if anything happens when she goes into labour.
“I know there are a lot of people facing emergencies, but a pregnant woman can’t just not give birth when the time comes. I hope the doctors will consider that fact,” she said.
Covid-19 and the coup
Of the five private hospitals contacted by Myanmar Now for comment, only one, the Ar Yu International Hospital in Tamwe Township, responded. Dr. Wah Wah Win Myint, a physician at that hospital, would only confirm that it was not accepting patients who had contracted Covid-19.
Dr. Thida Win, the vice administrator of the public Yangon Central Women’s Hospital, declined to comment, saying that she was not authorized to speak to the media. Health ministry officials were also unavailable for comment.
One doctor, a specialist in obstetrics with seven years’ experience, noted that pregnant women are at especially high risk from Covid-19.
“The virus can really disrupt the function of the lungs. It would be difficult to even resuscitate them because of the pregnancy,” the doctor said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Most observers agree that the current situation is far worse than it was during the first two waves of Covid-19 that hit Myanmar, both of which occurred under the ousted civilian government.
While that is partly due to the fact that more infectious variants of the coronavirus have emerged since the start of the pandemic, political instability under the regime that seized power on February 1 has also been a major factor.
A vaccination program that began just days before the coup was one of the first casualties of the military takeover. Then, with many doctors and nurses joining the Civil Disobedience Movement, the capacity of public hospitals was drastically reduced, as medical professionals became hunted dissidents.
Despite these grim realities, however, the obstetrician who spoke to Myanmar Now urged pregnant women not to lose hope.
While they and their families should make sure they have referrals for hospitals in case they’re needed, they should also be prepared to have the baby at home, the doctor said.
“What else can you do? You could exhaust yourself going from hospital to hospital, but many are not even accepting the parents of doctors right now. I doubt they’re going to make an exception for a random pregnant lady.”
