ABSTRACT
This chapter describes reforms of the health care system and the way they were implemented in order to assess what was new in these reforms and what was not, what improvement they brought, what were their weaknesses and whether or not they are progressing in the direction initially planned. It provides the contextualisation before turning to outline the reforms themselves. The chapter also describes how they are affecting the country overall but also uses the Thandwe region in Rakhine State as an example of a peripheral area historically particularly disadvantaged in terms of health care provision. By providing some brief comments on the way the National League for Democracy (NLD) - as the current ruling party - the chapter pursues these reforms and the challenge it faces. The Myanmar health system is composed of biomedicine and indigenous traditional medicine, with the former occupying a dominant position.
