Three months of peace of mind, one injection at a time

Mobile Units

While the government health centers cover a great deal of the territory, the immigrant populations tends to be left behind. They face discrimination and low priority in these health centers. So this is where PPAT comes in. We have a mobile unit that goes to rural immigrant villages every three months to administer family planning. We set up in a town pavilion, a local store, or a bus stop and give injections or three month supplies of the pill to women for around one dollar.

When we arrive women have already been waiting, they are given the next date at each visit and a loudspeaker announces our upcoming visit a few days prior. Just to get the stragglers we also beep the horn of our Toyota 4x4 (necessary for reaching a lot of these places) as we pass any settlements close to our destination.
Women all produce a ratty yellow cardboard card with their names, ID numbers, and a stamp for each time they come. One by one we dig up their medical records and take a brief medical history and then send them over to be injected/given pills.
The highlight for all the women is being weighed on the scale. We bring a scale with us and it is neat that something so simple can be such a huge attraction. Kids are really into it. We let them get weighed when we’re all done. Thanks to this scale I get a lot of practice with my numbers in Thai between about 40 and 90 (since we weigh them in kilos).
In one village every single woman who came seemed to have a one year old child. I can’t imagine living in poverty as an undocumented immigrant and having to worry about caring for and providing for a brood of children as well. The national goal is to have families with two children. The logo for PPAT consists of the silhouettes of a happy family of four.
I like to think that these mobile units bring three months of peace of mind, one injection at a time.