Under the three-year training project, medical staff from SingHealth will help nearly 200 of their counterparts at Yangon General Hospital (YGH) in Myanmar upgrade their skills and improve their systems for treating serious injuries.   The project, which is jointly supported by SingHealth, the Singapore International Foundation and YGH, is set to benefit about 30,000 patients.

YGH is the largest public hospital in Myanmar with 2,000 beds, 200 of which are set aside for trauma patients.   Every year, Myanmar sees a large number of emergency or trauma cases as a result of traffic or work-related accidents – on average, the hospital admits about 30 such patients a day.

Professor Peter Lim, Group Chief Risk Officer, SingHealth (2nd from right), and project team leader said, “One of the problems is prioritizing.   Since trauma is becoming such a major issue in Myanmar, it really makes sense for us to increase the number of facilities and resources that we put in this area.   Rehabilitation, too, because it’s not enough to just patch a patient up and send them home.”

Apart from training, some staff from YGH will also visit Singapore on a study trip, where they will learn and exchange knowledge with their various counterparts at local hospitals and polyclinics.