Hospital Sees Thousands of New Cambodians

When the staff at the National Maternal and Child Health Center welcomed their 10,000th new Cambodian last February, less than two years after opening, it was a joyful occasion.

But joyful occasions happen all the time at the hospital, a sleek and well equipped facility on Avenue France—about 100 a day, in fact.

Elizabeth Wright/The Cambodia Daily
Mother, baby doing well.

This is the major facility for childbirth in the city and also receives referrals from the rest of the country. But it is more than simply a hospital, it also serves as a major training facility for doctors, nurses and midwives.

The general mission of the 156-bed hospital—often known as the Japanese Hospital because it was equipped with Japanese aid—is to raise the general standards of maternal and child health across Cambodia.

Dr Koum Kanal, acting director at the hospital, said the facility’s responsibilities are, primarily, preventive, corrective and promotive. “We take the opportunity when anyone comes here to show them a videotape that tells them what they need to know to protect themselves and their health,” he said. “We do this before they get their first appointment.”

Many factors endanger women’s health and contribute to a maternal death rate of 473 per 100,000 pregnancies, which contrasts with a rate of 17 in developed countries and is poor even by regional standards. Hemhorrages often occur because a woman is anemic and the causes of anemia often lie in dirty water and poor hygiene practices. Parasites in the body can reduce the general level of health and malaria is always a problem.

”We teach the women how to improve their health by taking precautions against parasites and that they can only prevent malaria by using mosquito nets,” said Dr Koum Kanal. “Also, we stress the need for antenatal care during the pregnancy—only half of the pregnant women in Cambodia receive this care, and it is the best way to get a good delivery.”

To encourage pregnant women to attend for regular checkups, the hospital has a fee scale of 5,000 riel for the first visit, 3,000 riel for the second, 2,000 riel for the third, 1,000 riel for the fourth and nothing for subsequent visits. “It is a promotion,” jokes Dr Koum Kanal. “We have to make charges so we can be self-sustaining, but we also have to motivate through the way we set fees.”

Other key concerns during antenatal checkups involve sexually transmitted diseases—all expectant moms are checked for syphyllis—and general low nutrition levels. 

And when the baby comes, experienced midwives attend the birth. There are 16 neonatal beds with incubators for premature babies. When all goes well, the happy couple are installed in wards that have extra-wide beds so they are never more than a few inches apart. They spend an average of three days at the center, pay 70,000 riel, about $18, then head out to start their new lives together.

—Elizabeth Wright