Healthcare services run by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in refugee camps along the Thailand-Myanmar border were suspended on Monday following an executive order from the U.S. President Donald Trump.
The IRC is the main healthcare provider in the refugee camps housing around 100,000 from Myanmar in Thailand along its 1,501 mile (2,416 km)-long border.
The IRC gets about half of its funding from the U.S. government and part of its work is to help resettle refugees to the U.S.
President Trump has ordered a 90-day pause in all U.S. government funding to the IRC, which is why it has suspended its healthcare services for refugee living in the camps in Thailand.
As a result of the IRC suspension, hospitals in the refugee camps have had to discharge all their patients except for emergency cases and stop seeing outpatients, according to healthcare officials working in the nine refugee camps.
“We don’t know exactly what’s going on. Following instructions from higher up, we discharged patients from the hospital. I only learned this morning that all IRC operations would be halted. I’m not sure how long this will last. We were told we’d be contacted if anything changes. We also heard we won’t be paid this month. We don’t know if we’ll ever be able to resume work or when we’ll receive our salaries,” a healthcare worker in Nupo refugee camp, located in Thailand’s Tak Province, told the Karen Information Center (KIC).
As well as being suspended in Nupo Refugee Camp, IRC provided healthcare was also suspended in the Umpiem and Mae La refugee camps on Jan. 27. Ambulance drivers in all three camps have also been suspended from their jobs, according to information received by KIC.
“At the moment, relevant officials are holding a series of meetings. While the number of patients has been assessed, all have since been discharged. And medical equipment is now being packed away,” a healthcare worker from Mae La refugee camp told KIC.
“The IRC has informed us that they have stopped operations because they are no longer receiving aid. If there are no hospitals in the camps, there will be tremendous hardships. We don’t know how long this situation will last. We will have to sit in a meeting to decide what to do next,” said Saw Pwel Say, the secretary of the Karen Refugee Committee (KRC).
Currently, waste collection in the camps has also been suspended, according to KRC. Besides providing healthcare in the camps, the IRC had also been collecting waste, supplying drinking water, and providing care for mothers and children in the camps.