Dengue Fever
Families wait for medicine at the pharmacy (left)
Dr. Kea examines a child (right)
The dengue fever epidemic in Cambodia seems to have reached
its peak. Although the number of children diagnosed with Dengue Fever has
decreased since last month, we are still seeing around 60 to 80 dengue patients
a week. The biggest difficulty with Dengue is that there is no specific
treatment. Replacement of fluids is the most important thing, along with
close and careful monitoring of each child for signs of bleeding or shock.
The hospital remains full to capacity each day and some children still
have to be redirected to other health facilities. It was not only rural
families affected by Dengue Fever. Children of staff also caught Dengue
and were cared for at home. This put additional pressure on our staff, caring
for patients whilst worrying for their own children. We are exceptionally
grateful to all those generous people who are helping us get through the
worst of this Dengue Fever epidemic.
Dr. Peng An exxamining a patient in the Out Patient
Department
If
you would like to help fight the Dengue epidemic, Click Here
Nursing Student Project, 2007
AHC nurse Thida caring for patient in the Inpatient
Department (left) Student nurses in training (right)
Even though there has been an epidemic, training continues
as usual. During the month of August, three groups of nursing students received
clinical training here at Angkor Hospital for Children. The 96 nursing students
and 4 instructors came from Stung Treng, Battambang, and Kampong Cham Regional
Training Centers, and also from the Technical School for Medical Care (TSMC).
This brings our nursing trainee totals this year to 40 clinical instructors
and government hospital nurses, and 159 nursing students.
The training consists of 89 hours of clinical practice and classroom instruction,
over a period of two weeks. As part of their training, every student must
do a case study and make a case presentation to the whole group. Each group
is a mixture of students and nurses from each of the centres, to encourage
liaison and good working relationships nationally. The August trainees post-training
results showed an average improvement of 30% on their pre-test scores. This
is a noticeable improvement and reflects well on the quality of training
input as well as the determination of the trainees to improve their skills.
Volunteers
August
saw 33 international volunteers come to the hospital. The majority of these
came from the USA, but we also had volunteers form Europe, Asia and Cambodia.
Details of the countries represented are listed at the end.
The skilled areas of the volunteers are as diverse as the countries they
come from. Of the volunteers, a third of them were either medical students
or qualified residents. Just over a third were non-medical and assisted
the registry, play specialist or other support areas. The remaining volunteers
were specialists in areas such as dentistry, laboratory, physiotherapy,
engineering or public relations.
Volunteers in August: USA 11; Singapore 5; Cambodia 3; Germany 3; Australia
3; Japan 2; France 2; Canada, UK, Spain, Holland, 1 each.
Volunteer physiotherapist Kathrin Wojtzyk (Germany)
during Home Care visit
Congratulations Dr Soeung Seitaboth – National Trainer!
Dr. Seitaboth receives certificate from H.E. Eng Huot,
Secretary of State (left) Dr. Seitaboth at the University of Washington
(right)
Congratulations to Dr Soeung Seitaboth, our senior resident HIV specialist.
He has qualified as a national trainer for The Clinician Training on Management
of Opportunistic Infections and Anti Retroviral Therapy in Children. One
of only 75 qualified trainers in the country, Dr Seitaboth will train government
doctors, both here at Angkor Hospital as well as in Phnom Penh. AHC currently
has some 400 children receiving anti-retroviral (ART) medications to prolong
and improve the quality of their life. As part of our Homecare HIV program
we also employ a few people living with HIV/AIDs to help counsel and advise
our patients.
Dr Seitaboth has also just returned from 2 weeks in Washington, USA where
he attended a Principles of STD/HIV Research Course. The course was beneficial
in 2 ways: it provided guidance on carrying out research, which is something
all of our senior doctors are currently engaged with, and it helped Dr.
Seitaboth decide how we can better assist our HIV patients when dealing
with the benefits and side effects of treatment.
Family Education
Nurse Prasith teaches families about ORT (left) Leng
Daly teaches parents about nutrition (right)
Family education is a very big part of our education program
as we fully believe that health education is vital if we are to improve
children’s health generally. Two cornerstones of our family education project
are the oral rehydration therapy (ORT) project, donated and supported by
MERCY, Malaysia, and the nutrition project, supported by Abbott.
The ORT center, based in the hospital waiting area, provides rehydration
education and oral rehydration salts (ORS) to families to combat diarrhoea.
Our nutrition nurse, Leng Daly, gives bedside nutrition education to families
and provides nutritious food samples to combat malnutrition and reduce cases
of malnourishment. This is reinforced by our twice daily cooking demonstrations,
given by our hospital cooks in our recently refurbished kitchen area, using
vegetables grown in our demonstration gardens.
Visitor Center
Work on the new Visitor Center is progressing well. Even though we have
had quite a few days of wet weather recently, we are still on schedule for
completion in January 2008. If this continues, we will be opening the center
in February.
Eng Sreymom has been successfully appointed as Manager of the Visitor Center,
working with Arun, our Public Relations Director. Sreymom is currently on
placement with Artisans D’Angkor to benefit from their experience with handling
larger sales and displaying quality items. She will also be visiting the
John McDermott Gallery, another of our regular supporters, for guidance
on displaying artwork in our Visitor Center Art Gallery.
The Visitor Center is going to be a wonderful addition to AHC and will
showcase the work we do here in Siem Reap to help Cambodian children.
Interesting Reading
Readers of the September issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine can read
about President Bill Clinton’s visit through Southeast Asia, including his
stop at our very own Angkor Hospital for Children. The hospital has been
working with the Clinton Foundation to improve the care and treatment of
children living with HIV/AIDS. Check out the issue at a local newsstand
or online at:
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/detail?articleId=11337.
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