Myanmar coup: The doctors and nurses defying the military

Myanmar protests. Creative Commons

A significant proportion of healthcare in Myanmar is now being delivered outside state hospitals, by doctors and nurses who oppose the military and are loyal to the National Unity Government challenging the junta's legitimacy, medical workers in the country told the BBC.

Most interviewees' names have been changed for their security.

Organised resistance to the 1 February coup in Myanmar started with healthcare workers announcing a boycott of state-run hospitals. They led the first street protests, calling it the "white coat revolution".

That put medics on a collision course with the junta, and has resulted in much of Myanmar's healthcare system going underground.

In many areas more than 70% of health workers are believed to have abandoned their jobs, their hospitals and their patients. It was a difficult ethical decision, one defended by senior doctors in a letter they sent to the medical journal The Lancet.

"Our duty as doctors is to prioritise care for our patients - but how can we do this under an unlawful, undemocratic, and oppressive military system?

"Fifty years of previous military rule failed to develop our health system and instead enshrined poverty, inequality, and inadequate medical care. We cannot return to this situation."

Grace, a teacher at the Yangon Nursing University, says they all "chose to join the CDM [civil disobedience movement]".  – BBC News