MAE SOT (Thailand) - In a simple, airy room with wooden benches, a barefoot woman is training volunteers who want to work at her remote health clinic within sight of Myanmar.

The village of Mae Tao in Tak province is just 4km from the border, but in the nearest town of Mae Sot, where the streets are a fusion of cultures, mention Dr Cynthia Maung's name to a tuktuk driver and he will have no trouble finding her.

For more than 10 years, Dr Maung's sprawling clinic with 150 staff members has been a lifeline for the displaced fleeing the military regime in Myanmar.

The 44-year-old mother of three lives only a few hundred kilometres from the outskirts of the Myanmar city of Moulmein where she was born.

She cannot return, because she is identified too closely with the rebellious Karen people for the ruling State Peace and Development Council to allow her, she says.

But she is now known as the Mother Theresa of refugees and she has won international recognition for her work.

Displaced by the upheavals which have racked Myanmar since 1988, she still has to cope with the occasional raid from police looking for illegals. But encouraged by friends, she continues with her work.

In her large, but packed office all available shelf space is filled with files and papers. There is a large picture of King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the wall and three smaller pictures of Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

'The broader issue is the situation in Burma is getting worse. We have been here many years providing health services, but we need to get into preventive care...,' Dr Maung said.

'The issue of displaced people needs to be recognised to develop a plan for the long-term benefit of the population, because the health-care system in Burma (Myanmar) has collapsed,' she said.

Fifty per cent of cases are from Myanmar.

Death rates among new-born babies and mothers giving birth are high, malaria is common, and the clinic's seven doctors - three from Myanmar, the others foreign volunteers - also have to cope with respiratory illnesses, liver ailments, tuberculosis, hypertension and HIV.

The clinic provides a wide range of services - reproductive health counselling, pre-and post-natal care, a maternity ward, eye clinic, blood bank, immunisation and a prosthetic limb unit mostly for an average of five landmine victims a month.

The clinic is supported by several international and Thai NGOs and some foreign governments' programmes. Treatment is free, but patients must buy a 10-baht (43-Singapore-cent) registration card which is good for life.

Until 1997, Dr Maung used to cross the border with a mobile clinic.

'I feel sad,' she said. 'After all these years I haven't seen any change or improvement in the situation.'

She believes the Thai government's fresh approach to the issue of the displaced - to have the border settled and push them back - is good in theory.

'Go back to what? To rebuild the country will take years. Even in ceasefire areas, there is no health and education system in place,' she said.

The displaced people issue is a thorny one for Thailand.

In the province of Tak, around half the population is said to be from across the border. Last week, hospitals in border areas said they had lost 16 million baht in five districts, treating thousands of Myanmar refugees who could not afford to pay.

The interview with Dr Maung is interrupted by a man bringing a message - three of the clinic's patients are among more than 100 striking Myanmar workers rounded up by police at a factory in the Mae Sot area. These are everyday realities here.