Battambang Hospital, Cambodia

Clear Path Co-Founder Imbert Matthee is leading a group of CPI supporters across Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. He has filed this report.

My Cambodian friend Sary has been telling me for years that I should go visit the hospital in Battambang, the second-largest city in Cambodia. �They do not have anything,� he keeps saying while shaking his head. That�s followed by another statement along the same lines and a short laugh that implies I can�t possibly imagine how deprived this medical facility is. It wasn�t much of an exaggeration.

What�s true for many hospitals in the developing world is true for western Cambodia. If they have equipment, it�s very old and patched together like Cuban cars. It�s one of the reasons we started a medical equipment donations program at Clear Path four years ago. If you have ever wondered why your medical premiums are so high, it�s partly because there is an enormous amount of equipment turnover and waste of supplies in the health care industry in the U.S.
Technology, government regulations and medical methodology keep changing, but the surplus that results is by no means obsolete at a hospital like the one in Battambang.
Take the OR. It has one functional surgery suite that serves hundreds of thousands of people living in three border provinces: Pailin, Battambang and Banteay Mancheay. And, frankly, I am not sure I would want to submit to an operation there myself.
The �ambulance� is a rusty old Japanese pickup truck. There is virtually no emergency room equipment. Beds are old steel monsters without mattresses. Of course, there is always the suspicion that the good machines from government support are diverted to private clinics, so we won�t ship anything here until our Cambodia partner organization has a regular presence in the province and can make sure the items stay where they belong.
Since 2001, Clear Path has sent 34 containers of equipment to hospitals in the developing world. This capacity-building program largely for landmine-affected countries has served hospitals in Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, Uganda, Thailand and the Philippines.
Just last week, with help from Sary, we shipped three containers of exam tables to Cambodia�s Medical Volunteer Association in Phnom Penh, which will distribute them to Battambang and other hospitals we will follow with.
One of he next shipments will have other items the 32 docs here can use: beds, gurneys, OR equipment, oxygen tents, defibrillator, gloves, dressings and all kinds of surgical supplies. The donation will give us some leverage too. In exchange for saving on his acquisition budget, we are asking the director to pay more attention to the landmine accident survivors we will probably refer to the hospital once the training center near the border is up and running (see the blog about Phan Thong Kam).