Issues the Project Tackles

“Pediatric Surgery” is a medical field to treat infants and children in need of surgery due to sickness or injury. In Cambodia, there is a limited number of hospitals which offer pediatric surgery because of a lack of doctors and nurses who are capable of diagnosing accurately and treating patients properly. This current status of the medical community in Cambodia has been causing some patients to die or suffer from lifelong disabilities as curable sicknesses or injuries are not treated properly.

Background of the Issues

Child mortality rate in Cambodia shows one of the highest among Southeast Asia countries. Most medical facilities and professionals disappeared in the twenty year civil war since 1970, especially under the oppressive rule of Pol Pot’s regime from 1975 to 1979. Afterward, with supports from foreign countries, numbers of doctors and nurses have been increasing, and medical facilities have been recovering; however, there was no international support on pediatric surgery requiring high expertise.

We, FIDR, acknowledged the necessity of establishing the field of pediatric surgery in Cambodia. Cooperatively with the National Pediatric Hospital (NPH) in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, we have promoted technology improvement and establishment of a medical care system since 1996. After 20 years of our efforts there, local surgeons and anesthesiologists have become able to treat patients properly and train young health professionals who aim for working in pediatric surgery.

For strengthening the pediatric surgery medical care system in rural areas, we expanded our efforts on pediatric surgery to rural areas in 2016 and selected Kratie province, which is located in the northeastern part of Cambodia, as a model area. We are continuing our activities on development of human resource in pediatric surgery and referral system for pediatric surgical patients in the rural areas where many children still don’t have an access to proper medical treatment.