DAW Maw cringes at the escalating pain in her back as she waits to see a specialist. Despite being in a private clinic, there are almost a hundred other people waiting for their consultation.

“Seven years ago when I was admitted to one of private hospital in the downtown area for my osteoporosis, I felt like I was receiving special treatment. The place was quiet and the service was worth that I paid,” she said.

“Today, when I come back to the same hospital I feel terrible; there are so many people here waiting for a long time, I’m dizzy because there is no fresh air.

After finally getting to see the specialist, she returns disappointed as she believes the consultation was not long enough; it only took five minutes to diagnose her problem.

“I found that the specialist was too tired and he cannot provide me enough information on the dos and don’ts regarding my disease,” she said. “I think that quality doctors are rare in Myanmar.”

Ma Yi Yi Soe was also not satisfied with the service offered by one of Myanmar’s private hospital. She says the hospital handled her brother’s illness badly and is now afraid to visit a private hospital.

“I think the doctors today are giving too much hope to the family of patients who are terminally ill. They reassure you again and again,” she said. “When my brother was hospitalised, the doctors asked us to do test after test but they still could not give us any specific diagnosis.”

“At last my brother died after ten days, after suffering variety of treatment without ever being diagnosed,” she said.

She says she was also not happy with the bill her family was left with after her brother’s death – despite what she believes was shoddy treatment by the hospital.

“The bill for my brother’s treatment at the hospital came to about K2.5 million for ten days,” she said. “We did not expect it to be that much, we were never told. We only had K15 million in hand so we were forced to borrow the rest of the money from my relatives.

“Before any tests are performed, a qualified and responsible person from the hospital should consult with the patient and their family about how much money it will cost and what kind of test is really needed. This would have allowed us to at least estimate the total cost.”

In response to complaints like these, in 2007 the State Peace and Development Council enacted a private healthcare services law, which aims to develop private healthcare services in accordance with the National Health Policy.

Prof Hla Myint, president of Myanmar Medical Council, said that the 16-chapter law protects patients and will boost the quality of the facilities of private hospitals and clinics and the standard of the doctors and nurses who work there.

“This law will help patients who complain for not getting quality services from hospitals and not getting enough consultation time from doctors even though they cost a lot of money to visit doctor,” he said.

He also added that doctors should see patients for a minimum of 15 minutes to ensure that consultations are thorough, adding: “Patients who do not feel satisfaction with the service received from their doctor could complain to the council.”

If the complaint is found to be justified, the council issues a warning to the doctor and the council will take action if doctors ignore the warning.

“We will withdraw the license of any doctor who ignores a warning,” he said, adding that the Ministry of Health and the Myanmar Medical Council are currently doing assessment of private hospitals.