Located in Dili, Bairo Pite Clinic sees an average of 300 patients per day and is one of the most highly visited health clinics in the country. Services provided by Bairo Pite Clinic presently include maternity and infant care, vaccinations, tuberculosis (TB), malaria and dengue fever treatment, HIV diagnosis and treatment, in-patient and dental services, health outreach, and training for local health care workers. The clinic also operates a medical laboratory, pharmacy, kitchen and laundry.

Bairo Pite Clinic was previously a military clinic used by the Indonesian government and abandoned when Indonesian forces withdrew from Timor-Leste. The clinic was founded in 1999 by Timor Aid and Dr Dan Murphy and in partnership with AFAP to serve the immediate needs of a population affected by the violence of the Indonesian withdrawal. Bairo Pite Clinic became an independent NGO health clinic in 2001 that provides free health care services to those in need.

Community Midwife Training at Bairo Pite Clinic

Maria da Costa Soares, from Fehuk Ruin Village in Manatuto District, has just completed three months of Community Midwife Training at Bairo Pite Clinic and is due to return home mid December with skills that will enable her to assist local midwives in delivering babies.

Maria da Costa Soares

In her village, there are three nurses and two midwives but due to many pregnancies in the district, the two midwives are not able to attend to all pregnant women, especially as they also live far from the village and are not able to attend all night deliveries. It was decided that a volunteer should be trained in midwifery and Amelia was sent to Bairo Pite Clinic for training. Amelia states that she has learnt much over the past three months about deliveries, anti-natal care and testing women for pregnancy and is looking forward to assisting the local midwives when she returns home.

BPC midwives

Dr Dan Murphy

Doctor Dan Murphy received his MD from the University of Iowa. He spent six years working with Ceasar Chavez at a clinic for farm workers, where he was involved with legislation against pesticide abuse. He has also worked as a doctor in Mozambique, another former Portuguese colony, Laos and Nicaragua.

Dr Dan has worked in East Timor since September 1998, although the Indonesian government forced him out early 1999. He returned September 1999 and has been steadfastly working since to provide health care through the small Bairo Pite Clinic, which he runs on a tight budget in Dili, the country's capital city.

Rebels with the bones of their feet smashed to bits were some of Dr Dan’s first patients when he arrived in East Timor. Scores of them wobbled up to his makeshift medical clinic after they were brutally tortured by the Indonesian army.

The wounds Dr Dan now heals are rarely the result of violence, but medical need in the region is no less urgent. If anything, Dr Dan says, the need is rising. He begins seeing patients at 8 in the morning and finishes well after sundown. During that time, he often diagnoses a number of new cases of tuberculosis (TB), a widespread disease in East Timor. TB is not the only struggle his patients face, the list includes malaria, dengue, pneumonia, diarrhoea, hepatitis, encephalitis, yaws, leprosy and HIV. He is also involved with preventive care and assists during births.