The hospital bringing free surgeries to Cambodia

Dr. Touch Sok Davy was in the middle of surgery to remove a nasal polyp when the drill she was using stopped working. Her patient was lying on her surgical table mid-procedure as other doctors and nurses scrambled through the hospital’s ill-equipped medical supply room, looking for a functioning replacement. “During the nasal polyp surgery, we had to stop halfway because while we have the equipment, it’s not good and it even breaks down during surgery,” she said.
 

As chaotic as the situation was, Dr. Sok Davy said it was exceedingly common at the Children’s Surgical Center (CSC), a facility that provides free consultations and surgeries to as many as 150 new patients daily – both children and adults. Most of the equipment at the hospital is secondhand, donated from other hospitals once they have no need of it. Some items are given to CSC already broken, in hopes the onsite technician is able to restore them to working order.
 

“Almost never,” 30-year-old Dr. Sok Davy, who heads the ear, nose and throat department, said when asked if they’re ever given new equipment to work with. “We only get donations so it’s difficult to get everything that we need. Sometimes the equipment doesn’t work well, sometimes we have to perform a surgery but the equipment maybe isn’t very sharp,” she laments.

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