Japan Provides $134,526 for Health Centers in Kampong Cham

Tin Sokhavuth

Representative from PH-Japan NGPO (LEFT) meets with healthcare staff from Steung Trang Health Center to discuss about the measures on how to improve the health center. Photo supplied.

The government of Japan has agreed to provide $134,526 to PH-Japan (PHJ) – a Japanese NGO working on the contribution to improve Cambodian healthcare system. The grant contract was signed on Monday at the Embassy of Japan in Phnom Penh, between Mr. Kumamaru Yuji, Ambassador of Japan to Cambodia, and Ms. Nakata Yoshimi, country director of the PHJ office in Cambodia.

According to a press release issued by the embassy, PHJ will use this grant to implement the project of primary healthcare system to strengthen mothers and children in Kampong Cham province.

Moreover, through this project, PHJ will strengthen the healthcare system in Kampong Cham’s Steung Trang district by helping healthcare staff to better manage and operate their healthcare centers.

PHJ will also use the grant to provide training for midwives from different healthcare center and volunteers working in each village in the district. PHJ will also help to rehabilitate and/or improve healthcare centers by installing new modern equipment if necessary.

According to the PHJ’s website, PHJ has chosen Kampong Cham to implement its current project due to the fact that the province is the most populated in the country. With its 142 healthcare centers, the province is considered for having the largest number of healthcare centers in the Kingdom.

However, 22 healthcare centers in the province do not have registered midwives yet; and the assistant midwives working in those healthcare centers had received only one year of training after graduating from their high school.

“The province has the problem of lack of human resources with adequate knowledge and practical medical services who can be leaders on the practical level,” read the website.

On the other hand, according to the statistics of the district healthcare center, the number of health checks during pregnancy, child birth and postpartum was decreasing. This problem was also due to the lack of adequate healthcare services.

The grant assistance for Japanese NGO projects started in Cambodia since 2002 to support a variety of Japanese NGOs activities such as reconstruction and development efforts at the grassroots level.

Since 2002, the government of Japan has provided more than $26.1 million for 94 projects mainly in the field of primary education, health, agriculture and mine clearance.

The Cambodian healthcare system is very week and is making a big different between rich and poor people, and between rural and urban populations. Child malnutrition is very high – in 2014, 32 percent of children under five or about 500,000 children were stunted.

During the civil wars for more than 30 years, many hospitals and healthcare centers all over the country were destroyed. After the wars, the government, in close cooperation with NGOs, has reconstructed the Cambodian healthcare system by trying to implementing different schemes of healthcare such as state supervision healthcare system and Health Equity Fund (HEF) that is funded by various development partners and the government.

However, access to health services is not easy for people living in poverty or close to the poverty line, people with disabilities and older people. Only about one fifth of Cambodians have access to the healthcare insurance and many households fall into poverty due to the high cost of health services.

The existing state controlled healthcare system does not provide health service with efficiency for the poor and for Cambodian people as the whole due to the lack of materials, equipment and qualified staff. Low salary in healthcare sector is also an obstacle for the motivation of the healthcare staff.

According to German International Cooperation (GIZ), a German NGO sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), that experienced the implementation of the HEF in the province of Kampong Thom, Kampot and Kep, the access to healthcare services for the poor and vulnerable population has improved due to the implementation of the HEF.