"So what exactly do you NEED?" I asked Dr Park Jin Young, Medical Director of the new Kawthoolei New Village Hospital just inside Burma and across the river-border from the tiny western-Thai-border mountain village of Mae Salit.
"Hats. Baby Hats. Some small ones too. For the tuberculosis babies and patients. Can you organize?" he replied.
"Sure. I'll find a way to do that," I glibly replied.
Lots of older retirees living in Chiang Mai. Must be some knitters. How hard could it be? 🤣
Turned out it was very hard. Turns out most expat people who run away to live in Thailand aren't very interested in the gritty unsolvable issues confronting the left-behind relatives of their domestic staff. Expats are mostly here for sunshine, younger boyfriends and new wives, an easy life, cheap restaurants and coffee dates, great cost of living and a great way to extend their pensions and fixed incomes. The few amazing community-minded people I know here are already over-subscribed, already doing what they can. And then some.
And then came Covid-19 and lots of home time. Months of it. And so I decided to start knitting, with cool-cold season just 5 short months away and a lot of sick babies and kids in the FREEZING mountains (can be -1C to about 10C in the mountains late Nov through late Feb) - people living rough with only the very lucky ones having drafty bamboo huts.
I had sworn I would never knit again.
Despite having been an exceptionally good knitter completing projects no less than Aran sweater level, I hated the pressure. My mother INSISTED I learn, "because no one will want to marry you if you can't knit." I proved her wrong, no? 🤣 There are days I wonder if my 3rd husband was just to prove a point. But I digress. My mother would make me sit on the equivalent of the dunce chair after dinner, every day, and knit 10 rows of a pattern on a yellow hot water bottle cover. I still dislike yellow as a colour. I remember tears and slaps and a lot of scolding for dropped stitches and poor tension. I knitted until I left home at age 20, as expected and required, and then I never touched it again.
Until just recently.
This week I am on my 9th baby hat. My daughter has already knitted 3 as well, and those few have already been sent to the hospital team.
I plucked up the courage to tell my now 84 year old mother what I'm doing, and she immediately started insisting that I knit on one circular needle. Right now that feels like the olympic level of what I want or am emotionally able to do, so I ignored her. You can do that at age 56. Quality wool isn't that easy to come by and given the need for them to be seriously washable (many of these people don't have actual homes and construct very rough temporary jungle shelters) I opted to use a cheap, thicker acrylic - seems smartest, most affordable and means more sick babies will have warm heads.
How high is the incidence of tuberculosis amongst the indigenous Karen and Burmese people?
Both Myanmar and Thailand have significant burdens of TB. Myanmar had an estimated incidence of 365/100,0004 in 2015, and Thailand’s was significantly lower at 172/100,000. The migrant population in Mae Sot comes mostly from Kayin State, which had a notification rate in 2013 near the average of 256/100,000 for Myanmar. However, the notification rate in the township of Myawaddy in 2015 was double this rate at 579/100 000. In 2015, IOM reported a TB prevalence of 479/100,000 among all refugees, of all ages, in Thailand screened by them for resettlement. In refugees from Maela Camp, however, TB prevalence has exceeded 1% in some years. Late presentation of advanced disease, HIV,
and multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB are all known to complicate TB control in the border area. Source: World Health Organization Global TB Control Report, 2016. WHO, Geneva.
For comparison's sake, the US official national incidence of tuberculosis is 2.8 persons per 100,000 population.
A total of 1.5 million people died from TB in 2018 (including 251 000 people with HIV). Worldwide, TB is one of the top 10 causes of death and the leading cause from a single infectious agent (above HIV/AIDS).
In 2018, an estimated 10 million people fell ill with tuberculosis(TB) worldwide. 5.7 million men, 3.2 million women and 1.1 million children. There were cases in all countries and age groups. But TB is curable and preventable. Source.
For those of you who missed my little #3speak video of the first field hospital opened January 2020 in Karen State, Burma, here it is again:
Bear in mind this is the FIRST and ONLY official hospital in Karen State, servicing some 5 million people, which accounts for roughly 7% of Burma's population. My friend and colleague, Dr Park, is the only official doctor. The rest of the medical care is given by trained indigenous medics, visiting missionary and student medical staff, and volunteers.
The new hospital has had one humidicrib donated for the TB babies, by another hospital here in Chiang Mai:
Possibly worth more as an antique than to actually save newborn babies' lives.
It is in that context that Dr Park asked for warm woolly hats and warm baby things, and in that context that my personal "thing" with knitting suddenly seemed so petty.
I have subscribed to Hay House Unlimited Audio (thank you 
I am officially a knitter again. Grateful for all I have.Hoping to have 100 little warm baby and children's hats finished by November. I will be taking them cross border myself to the hospital, Covid-19 travel restrictions willing.
L-R: Dr Park Jin Young, Saw Diamond Khin Director of Karen Dept Health & Welfare, ethnic Karen medics (lighter blue tops), visiting Korean medical trainers and myself at the back in the orange.
If any #needleworkmonday people are struggling for worthwhile projects, please join me. Happy to send you some Hive in October to cover any postage costs to send them to me here in Thailand.
Another Demon Vanquished, Pierced by Knitting Needles. 🤣
All images used in my posts are created and owned by myself, unless specifically sourced. If you wish to use my images or my content, please contact me.
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