BACK TO HEALTH: A CAMBODIAN FARMER'S JOURNEY
If you were a rural Cambodian, where would you turn in times of a medical emergency?
Having no access to specialty doctors, or even doctors who can set a broken bone, is a real issue to millions of Cambodians who live in rural provinces. With few trained doctors being available in the country, and the bulk of whom live in Phnom Penh, many rural provinces simply do not have specialty doctors. When medical emergencies arise in rural provinces, access to adequate medical care can be difficult, if not impossible. Gunthia Hok’s story is a case of this.
Gunthia Hok is a 30 year old farmer and mother of three from Kampong Speu, a province 50 kilometers outside of Phnom Penh. Gunthia said of the medical situation in her province, “In our province, there are no specialized doctors to do operations or surgeries. This is a very big problem for our province. If we break a bone or have a serious illness, like a stroke or heart attack, there is no local doctor trained enough to give us immediate care.”
In March 2008, after she had picked up groceries from her local market, Gunthia broke her left femur in a horrific moto accident. Initially, Gunthia did not realize she had a major break in femur bone, so she sought the advice of a traditional medical healer in local province. He advised her that she had no break and that no further medical advice was necessary.
Following her consultation with this medical healer, Gunthia was unable to walk or move from her bed for over two weeks. After witnessing his wife in excruciating pain for a long period of time, Gunthia’s husband asked an organization, ICRC, to assist his wife with finding a hospital who could help her have surgery to repair her leg.
Through the help of this local NGO, Gunthia was brought to Phnom Penh for the first of her six surgeries to repair her left femur fracture. Elated at the thought of walking again, Gunthia said of SHCH, “I think this hospital is excellent and the nursing staff are very attentive to the patients. The staff really takes care of me and makes me feel happy. They never discriminate against me because I am too poor to go to a private clinic to repair my leg. I want to say ‘thank you’ to the doctors and nurses and everyone who took care of me.”
In closing, Gunthia said, “I want your hospital to be bigger, because in my case, we had to come two times to Phnom Penh to be treated. After the initial surgeries, I was sent home to recuperate because the hospital did not have the bed space to accommodate me. I had to come back twice to be cured 100% and for poor people it is very expensive to travel. This hospital is so helpful to the poor, I want you to be bigger so that you can help even more people who need the help.”
ALSO: READ ARCHIVED PATIENT STORIES FROM CAMBODIANS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY WHO HAVE RECEIVED CARE AT SHCH!
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