Medical professionals willing to travel to East Timor are needed. Medical supplies and monetary contributions are critical to the longterm needs of the East Timorese future health. Medical textbooks on major tropical diseases are unknown in East Timor but are critical for physicians working there. Meanwhile preventable diseases continue claiming the health and lives of many East Timorese. Preventable diseases, often precipitated by malnutrition, like tuberculosis, malaria, fungal, and bacterial infections and water borne parasites are common.
Mental illness is also present.
Vicious and inhuman assault and the ravages of continuous conflict round out these and other medical problems present in everyday medical and emergency needs of East Timor. The Indonesian military routinely subjected East Timorese women to rape, sexual slavery and forced sterilization. MAET has worked with Health Alliance International and Dr. Dan Murphy , who has spent almost all the last 2 years in East Timor. Dr. Murphy has appealed for scholarships for East Timorese medical students to complete their training as they are unable to return to Indonesia. MAET would like to see more interdisciplinary efforts such as might address Dr. Murphy's need for a steady source of electricity as required e.g. for refrigeration of vaccines.