Cambodia - Ministry Tries to Reduce Infant Deaths

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

khmertimes

You can find older posts regarding ASEAN politics and economics news at SBC blog, and older posts regarding health and healthcare at IIMS blog. I thank you.

Cambodia - Government Target for Eliminating HIV Pushed Back Five Years

Two years after Prime Minister Hun Sen vowed to eliminate new HIV infections by 2020, projections indicate the government will need another five years to reach its target.

Under pressure to increase government spending on HIV prevention and treatment initiatives in the face of donor funding cuts, Mr. Hun Sen declared the government would “not allow any successful program to go bankrupt” and allocated $3.7 million toward the efforts.

Compared to more than $224 committed by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria since 2003, the number is small, but still significant for a government that has almost entirely relied on donors in the past.

While the country’s fight against HIV/AIDS has drawn international praise following a drop in the rate of infection among people aged 15 to 49—from 1.7 percent in 1998 to 0.6 percent last year—both the government and NGOs are grappling with a lack of funding and other challenges in meeting the goal.

In February, the Ministry of Health revised its plan for the elimination of new HIV infections—meaning fewer than 300 new cases being identified annually—pushing back the target date to 2025.

In a report, the ministry estimates that newly identified cases would be no higher than 474 per year by 2020 and gradually decline to a “virtual elimination of HIV transmission by 2025.”

In addition to external funding cuts, domestic migration, a lack of HIV awareness among young people and a poorly funded public health sector were contributing factors behind the decision to revise the target, UNAIDS country representative Marie-Odile Emond said on Thursday.

“The new target is by 2025 and we think there is a consensus that it’s probably realistic,” she said . “It is still five years before the global target so Cambodia would still be one of the first countries to achieve this.”

UNAIDS estimates that 73,000 Cambodians have HIV, or 0.6 percent of the adult population, and 15,000 of them have not been identified, she said.

“It’s a bigger challenge than we expected,” Ms. Emond said of reaching the elimination target. “You realize that it still requires big investments. You need to maintain the effort and at the same time adopt new approaches.”

Ly Penh Sun, director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD, said on Wednes­day that donors had called for the government be more self-reliant and spend more of its own limited funds on prevention and treatment.

“That’s very challenging,” he said. “The transition is very difficult.”

Sonia Kohlbacher

cambodiadaily

You can find older posts regarding ASEAN politics and economics news at SBC blog, and older posts regarding health and healthcare at IIMS blog. I thank you.