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Tuesday, 04 December 2007 |
 Cambodia
is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a population of 43%
below the age of 15. Nearly half of its children are malnourished, and
one out of eight will die before their fifth birthday, due to
preventable causes.
Cambodia has a high infant mortality rate due to severe cases of diarrhoea. This is preventable through the management of diarrhoea, which involves mainly the prevention and treatment of dehydration. Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) is a simple and cost-effective process for treating diarrhoea-related dehydration. It involves the administration of fluids orally to prevent or treat dehydration that occurs as a result of diarrhoea.
In 2005, MERCY Malaysia funded the establishment of an Oral Rehydration Therapy Corner at the Outpatient Department of Angkor Hospital in Siem Reap. This allows children suffering from mild to moderate dehydration to receive treatment while their parents/caretakers receive education on the prevention and treatment of dehydration.
Our Response
 MERCY
Malaysia has been deploying mission members to Cambodia to provide
medical relief since 2002 and has been exploring new ways to provide
assistance to its people. Our projects were mainly flood relief due to
the yearly overflowing of the Mekong river. Since then, Cambodia’s
flood mitigation programme has successfully reduced the flooding and
with that our relief work came to a close.
In 2004, we deployed a team to provide medical assistance in the Angkor Hospital for Children.
MERCY Malaysia deployed our volunteer paediatric surgeon and
paediatrician in June 2004 to Angkor Hospital for Children located in the
Siem Reap province. The Angkor Hospital for Children is funded by a
non-profit organisation called Friends Without A Border. The hospital
serves as the provincial Paediatric Hospital as well as trains
government health workers.
Medical Aid
 During
this mission, our volunteer paediatric surgeon performed 11 scheduled
surgeries including hypospadias, removal of haemangioma and anterior
chest wall, cases involving hirshprung, rectal bleeding, right
orchidopexy and left brachial cyst, rectovestibular fistula anoplasty,
splenectomy and hypospadias, torticollis and neurofibroma removal.
MERCY Malaysia also donated medical supplies to the hospitals, and had
utilised part of these donated items during our scheduled surgeries.
Our volunteer paediatricians were also engaged in postgraduate
curricular activities to train future paediatricians.
Assessment
The Cambodia mission also provided an avenue for the team to network
with government departments and other NGOs while assessing the
possibilities of future projects in Cambodia. Many children are
suffering from malnutrition, tetanus and common diseases like
pneumonia. During our assessment, our volunteers observed three
children being on respiratory support. As the hospital lacked equipment
such as ventilators, nurses had to manually handbag as much as they
possibly could. This procedure has only a 25% success rate.
As there is very little funding to the hospitals, it did not provide
neonatal care facilities or enforced vaccination programmes. There were
also cases of children afflicted with HIV and AIDS.
Oral Rehydration Therapy Corner
 Our
assessment revealed that general healthcare situation especially in
Siem Reap needs international aid. MERCY Malaysia explored ways to work
with the government and international NGOs in assisting the upgrading
of medical standards in the region, and especially supporting the
paediatric activities within the Angkor Hospital for Children.
In September 2005, MERCY Malaysia completed the construction of Oral
Rehydration Therapy (ORT) Corner at Angkor Hospital for Children. The
handover and official opening was conducted in May 2006. The ORT Corner
serves for the treatments and education of ORT as hydration is a
serious medical issue for the children of Cambodia.
MERCY Malaysia continued to support the ORT in 2006. In its second year
of operation, more than 1,600 children were treated at the ORT Corner.
Under the supervision of nurses with advanced training, mothers and
caregivers were instructed on the proper administration of fluids to
rehydrate their children. Each family that visited the ORT Corner for
treatment was also given two to three bags of oral rehydration salts
and a bottle of pure water to continue treatment at home.
The ORT Corner was utilised extensively to provide training to visiting
Cambodian health workers and nursing students from all over the
country. The activities of the ORT Corner were included in the Medical
Director of Angkor Hospital's presentation for a Child Survival
Workshop in Phnom Penh. Use of the ORT Corner was also incorporated
into the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) training
courses, a programme organised by the hospital in cooperation with WHO
and the Ministry of Health in Cambodia.
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