Health
Minister Mam Bung Heng has instructed private hospitals and clinics throughout
the Kingdom to establish services providing adequate care for infants with
health problems in an effort to lower rates of maternal death and infant
mortality.
Dated
last Thursday, Mr. Bun Heng’s letter said that while his ministry continued to
implement strategies to reduce deaths to both mothers and infants, it also
needed collaboration from private medical establishments across the country.
The
Health Ministry urged the owners of private hospitals and clinics with
maternity services to create additional services to better care for infants in
emergency situations.
“Directors
of private clinics or private hospitals with maternity services must create
services to save babies and collaborate with the capital and provincial health
departments,” he said.
Leang
Sreytouch, an employee at the Angkor Poly Clinic & Maternity in Phnom
Penh’s Choam Chao commune, said her employer had yet to establish services to
rescue newborns and had also yet to receive the ministry’s announcement.
“We will
wait and see for a while. Maybe the doctor [clinic owner] will set up the
service at this location, but now they are gradually processing it,” she said.
The
ministry’s announcement comes after some Facebook users strongly criticized the
health sector when a newborn with respiratory problems died after failing to
receive medical treatment from several hospitals.
Last
Tuesday, a man named Ruos Saruon wrote on Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook
page: “I took my newborn son who was crying and had difficulty breathing in an
ambulance accompanied by two doctors to Calmette Hospital.
“They did
not admit him and said there was no place. I took him to Kantha Bopha, but they
also wouldn’t admit him. I took him to the National Pediatric Hospital, but it
was too late and my son died.
“Samdech
[Mr. Hun Sen] please check this problem, do not let Cambodian children die like
this without helping just a little bit.”
Pech
Sotheary
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