Today’s Good People, Good Works will be presented in Khmer and English, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Hallo, friendly viewers, and welcome to Good People, Good Works on Supreme Master Television. Today’s program features the first of a two-part series that profiles Angkor Hospital for Children, a full-service pediatric hospital based in Siem Reap, Cambodia that provides compassionate charity medical care to the youngsters of the local community and neighboring provinces.

The hospital was established in 1999 by internationally acclaimed photographer Kenro Izu who travels the world taking images of sacred sites – from the pyramids of Egypt to the Caves of the 10,000 Buddhas in western China. Besides providing quality pediatric care, the facility also serves as a clinical training center for Cambodian medical professionals. Ms. Sinketh Arun, Angkor Hospital for Children’s Director of Public Relations now speaks about Mr. Izu and why he founded the facility.

First I would like to thank Supreme Master TV for giving us the opportunity to give information about the hospital. Angkor Hospital for Children was started by a Japanese photographer; his name is Kenro Izu. He first came to Cambodia during 1993. And the first time he came, he spent time doing his photography at the Angkor Wat Temple and then he met with many children at that time.

And some children were sick and it seemed like the children didn’t have very good care or any medical care from any medical facility in Siem Reap during that time.

When Mr. Izu returned to Cambodia to take photographs a year later, he went to the provincial hospital in Siem Reap to learn more about the health services available to the local children.

And then he spent time visiting the provincial hospital. And then he found a child with her father from the countryside, and the child was sick with a serious condition. The child was brought by the father to the provincial hospital, but at that time the medical facility was not so good. And then one day later, the child died during his visit. He heard the story about the child dying and he was moved by the story of that child, and he decided to do something for the Cambodians.

The child’s death had a great impact on Mr. Izu, who truly understood the father’s deep sorrow because the girl was about the same age as his own daughter.

And then he decided to start the organization, “Friends Without a Border,” which was established in 1996. After that he started raising money and the whole organization started doing work, and then they got enough funds to build Angkor Hospital for Children.

By building a worldwide coalition of like-minded individuals, Mr. Izu made his dream a reality and Angkor Hospital for Children began serving patients in 1999. The facility provides outpatient, inpatient, acute, emergency, surgical, low-acuity, dental and ophthalmologic care, and has treated over 500,000 children since its establishment.

The hospital provides full service to the children here, we have consultations during which we see about 400 children on average that come to our hospital every day. Also, we have inpatient service; there are 50 beds including the emergency room, which has four beds.

And we have an operating theater, there is about six or seven patients that we do surgery on every day. There is a dental clinic; there is an eye clinic, there is an outreach program and HIV/AIDS and a Home Care Program that we provide to the children in our area here in Cambodia.

The hospital takes all boys and girls that come through its doors, with care given free of charge. The facility tries to make the experience as comfortable as possible for both the patient and the family.

We ask the parents who bring the children here to make a small contribution to the hospital, about 500 riel, 1,000 riel, which is about 25 cents in US dollars. Some of the parents, they do not even have this amount of money.

We do not turn them away even if they don’t have any money to contribute. So we still keep them with us and then we try to see them. We try to accommodate them or whatever else we can do. Usually, they come here, and then sometimes we have to provide them transportation for free or food while they’re staying with us, if they don’t have the ability to take care on their own.

What are some of the health conditions that the hospital staff treat on a daily basis?

Mostly the children who come to our hospital, they have very, very common problems. And the most common problem they have is respiratory infection. Another problem, the second most common problem is diarrhea, and the third is malnutrition. Malnutrition is the third one that we see the most in our hospital. So the reason for children having a lot of problems with respiratory infections is because of malnutrition and not good hygiene.

When we come back, we’ll learn more about the services and health care programs provided by Angkor Hospital for Children. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to today’s Good People, Good Works featuring Angkor Hospital for Children, a non-profit pediatric facility dedicated to improving the health and future of Cambodia’s underprivileged kids by providing comprehensive healthcare services. Another serious health condition having a significant impact on Cambodian children is Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

So right now, HIV-positive children in our village, there’s more than 600 children. So mostly the child gets HIV from the parent, gets infected from their mother. There are only a few children that are infected by other sources like a blood transfusion, something like that. But most of the children who come to us who are HIV- positive, they get the infection from their parent.

Children with HIV require continuous treatment. The hospital tracks these patients and makes sure that they receive needed care.

But it is a little bit sad as well that many HIV patients they do not have a parent, they live with relatives. So those kind of children, they need a lot of support and a lot of care. And we provide the treatment by providing medication and a full check-up by bringing them here, then sending them back home. (We) try to make sure that they receive proper care and treatment from us.

The achievements of Angkor Hospital for Children in addressing HIV/AIDS in their region has drawn the attention of the international community, including former President of the United States Bill Clinton, who traveled to Cambodia in 2006 to see first-hand projects sponsored by the Clinton Health Access Initiative. During the trip he visited Angkor Hospital for Children and met with patients and staff.

We see improvement. To be honest, there are some, I think one or two communities it seems are changing very slowly. But some places are really good in changing, and following whatever we provide for them to do. We try to do whatever we can do.

For children with HIV/AIDS, severe malnutrition or other serious health conditions that require regular medical attention, Angkor Hospital for Children provides at-home visits through its compassionate Home Care Program.

With this program, we go out to the person’s house on a regular basis. So, depending on the condition of the child, some children we need to see them once a week or once a month or twice a month, depending on their condition. If our nurse finds any problem that we need to bring the child to the hospital then we encourage the parent to bring the child to the hospital directly.

So normally when we go out, our nurse, we bring medical records, medication, supplies, sometimes support like clothes or something like that for the child who lives in the countryside. When the child gets better and the child can be at home but still needs continuous medical care, we keep providing care even when they’re at home.

And mostly we educate the caretaker or the parent a lot. Especially when they’re at home, they need to have a lot of collaboration from the family or caretaker to do this. Otherwise it will not be successful.

The hospital follows the philosophy that prevention is always better than cure. Thus they invest in community health knowing it is best to keep kids healthy in the first place rather than trying to heal them once they have become ill. To improve the healthcare system in Cambodia, advancing awareness in the villages about pubic health best practices is essential to reaching this goal.

So to have a good hospital, and good doctors and nurses, we need to build up the capacity of the people as well, we need to provide more education to the villagers, (so they) understand how to take care of themselves, how to build up their lifestyle better.

So we have another program called “Capacity Building and Health Education” by which we work very closely with the community. We build up the people’s lifestyle, try to encourage them how to make their life better, not only healthwise, but also how to grow rice, grow vegetables, and have clean water to use in the village or in the house. And also to understand how to take care of themselves, including hygiene, just very, very simple skills for the daily life of the people of the villages.

Growing vegetables is very important. If there’s a lot to eat, they can sell the rest to the neighbors. And also to grow their own vegetables is very good because they don’t need to spend a lot of money in buying vegetables from the market. And another thing, the vegetables that they buy from the market sometimes are not really good. There’s a lot of chemicals. To grow our own organic vegetables is very, very good for our health.

Our sincere gratitude, Ms. Sinketh Arun and other Angkor Hospital for Children staff members for your compassionate hearts and noble work that is bringing love and hope to the children of Cambodia. We also salute you, Mr. Kenro Izu and all Friends Without Border supporters for starting this wonderful hospital in Siem Reap.

For more details on Angkor Hospital for Children,
please visit www.AngkorHospital.org
To learn more about Friends Without A Border,
please visit www.FWAB.org

Please be sure to join us next Sunday on Good People, Good Works for the conclusion of our series on the benevolent Angkor Hospital for Children.

Precious viewers, thank you for your company on today’s program. Up next is The World Around Us, after Noteworthy News. May Divine love grace all lives with beauty and blessings.