Calmette Hospital
Encyclopedia
Calmette Hospital or l'hôpital Calmette, located on Monivong Boulevard
in Phnom Penh
, is a public hospital
managed by Ministry of Health
and funded by the Cambodian and French
governments.to the Emergency Department of Calmette Hospital. (Doctorate thesis). University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Retrieved from http://wiki.straightjacketstudio.com/images/8/82/CIH2006-7-DLim-TraumaAssessment.pdf It is considered as Cambodia's flagship healthcare centre.. The name of the hospital was derived from Albert Calmette
, a renown French bacteriologist.
Calmette Hospital was built in 1950 and received support from several French organizations. In 1998, it was staffed by 30 physicians and surgeons and 50 nurses. There were 250 beds, as well as surgical, medical, gynecology and obstetrics
departments, along with a radiology
unit (including ultrasound
and echocardiogram but no computer tomography), hematology
, biochemistry
and microbiology
laboratories for medical analyses, a central pharmacy and an outpatient clinic. There is also a 10-bed intensive care unit
,
It is a fee-for-service hospital that offers a second tier of care for those who are unable to pay. The hospital provides health care services for the citizens of Phnom Penh
(73%), surrounding provinces (17%), and to foreigners (10%). Calmette has approximately fifteen thousand in-patients per year of which 20% are emergency visits. Trauma related injuries accounted for 47% of the emergency visits to Calmette in 2005. It was the most common reason for seeking emergency services in 2006. In addition, cranial trauma was the leading cause of mortality from the emergency department (accounting for 38% of the mortality rate).
for the wealthy. In 1974, the clinic was closed and educated individuals including those working at Calmette either fled abroad or were executed if they could not pose as being uneducated.
In 1979 after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, Revolution Hospital as it had been renamed had only 3 doctors out of the only 40 estimated to be left in the entire country. A team of Vietnamese doctors was brought in, soon to be joined by Cubans
, East Germans, Russians and Bulgarians. French had been the language of medicine in Cambodia, but soon it became multilingual. and Dr Heng Tay Khy who was named chief of surgery, spoke six languages.
In 1989, Médecins du Monde
conducted a study that recommended the hospital be reestablished as a public facility
. At the time, it was 90 percent reserved for high ranking officials and 10 percent for the poor. The French NGO recommended the allocation of resources be reversed. Further, the report recommended massive renovations and reconstruction costing $3 million, and that the name be changed to Calmette Hospital.
These changes, funded by the French government
and with donations from a variety of other nations since, including Japan, have given Phnom Penh the well-equipped facility it has today. There are 203 beds, 101 of them medical and 57 for surgical patients. Other beds are in the emergency, anaesthetic recovery, maternity and gynecology areas. A modern laboratory wing performs testing procedures and there are x-ray facilities.
Plans for the future include expansion of the cardiac treatment center, a new facility for the treatment of monks and work on the intensive care and emergency units.
, has been present at Calmette since 1990, providing support for "Medicine B", the indigent sector of the medical department in which services provided do not require a charge ("Medicine A" services must be paid for).
s available to conduct its emergency medical services of which, one ambulance is permanently on the field and is used primarily for blood transfusion
services while the other is located at the hospital’s emergency entrance on call when needed. A driver, nurse and/or doctor rotate as part of the emergency response teams. Occasionally, a resident may replace the emergency doctor.
About 40% of emergency patients reach the hospital via ambulance. It takes on average four hours to transport a patient to the emergency department. This value takes into account patients being transported from Kandal Province
in addition to those from the outskirts of the city. However, many patients simply walk into the emergency department on foot or by the help relatives.
and part from fee-paying patients. The mandate of Calmette is to treat the poor and there is always a shortfall as 50% of patients were from indigent backgrounds in a nation lacking social security provisions. International donors make up the difference and the French government is still a major supporter.
Victims of the tragedy received free medical treatment after Prime Minister Hun Sen
committed the government to pay for treatment of injuries inside Cambodia or overseas if necessary.
Monivong Boulevard
Monivong Boulevard is a central boulevard and thoroughfare of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Named after King Monivong of Cambodia, it crosses the city from north to south. Most streets in Phnom Penh have numbers rather than names and Monivong boulevard is also known as street 93...
in Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
, is a public hospital
Public hospital
A public hospital or government hospital is a hospital which is owned by a government and receives government funding. This type of hospital provides medical care free of charge, the cost of which is covered by the funding the hospital receives....
managed by Ministry of Health
Ministry of Health, Cambodia
The Ministry of Health is the government ministry responsible for governing healthcare, the healthcare industry, public health and health-related NGOs in Cambodia. The Ministry governs and regulates the activity of medical professionals, hospitals and clinics in the country. The current Minister...
and funded by the Cambodian and French
Government of France
The government of the French Republic is a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the fifth Republic. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic"...
governments.to the Emergency Department of Calmette Hospital. (Doctorate thesis). University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Retrieved from http://wiki.straightjacketstudio.com/images/8/82/CIH2006-7-DLim-TraumaAssessment.pdf It is considered as Cambodia's flagship healthcare centre.. The name of the hospital was derived from Albert Calmette
Albert Calmette
Léon Charles Albert Calmette ForMemRS was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist, and an important officer of the Pasteur Institute. He discovered the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, an attenuated form of Mycobacterium used in the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis...
, a renown French bacteriologist.
Calmette Hospital was built in 1950 and received support from several French organizations. In 1998, it was staffed by 30 physicians and surgeons and 50 nurses. There were 250 beds, as well as surgical, medical, gynecology and obstetrics
Obstetrics
Obstetrics is the medical specialty dealing with the care of all women's reproductive tracts and their children during pregnancy , childbirth and the postnatal period...
departments, along with a radiology
Radiology
Radiology is a medical specialty that employs the use of imaging to both diagnose and treat disease visualized within the human body. Radiologists use an array of imaging technologies to diagnose or treat diseases...
unit (including ultrasound
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is thus not separated from "normal" sound based on differences in physical properties, only the fact that humans cannot hear it. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is...
and echocardiogram but no computer tomography), hematology
Hematology
Hematology, also spelled haematology , is the branch of biology physiology, internal medicine, pathology, clinical laboratory work, and pediatrics that is concerned with the study of blood, the blood-forming organs, and blood diseases...
, biochemistry
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
and microbiology
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
laboratories for medical analyses, a central pharmacy and an outpatient clinic. There is also a 10-bed intensive care unit
Intensive Care Unit
thumb|220px|ICU roomAn intensive-care unit , critical-care unit , intensive-therapy unit/intensive-treatment unit is a specialized department in a hospital that provides intensive-care medicine...
,
It is a fee-for-service hospital that offers a second tier of care for those who are unable to pay. The hospital provides health care services for the citizens of Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...
(73%), surrounding provinces (17%), and to foreigners (10%). Calmette has approximately fifteen thousand in-patients per year of which 20% are emergency visits. Trauma related injuries accounted for 47% of the emergency visits to Calmette in 2005. It was the most common reason for seeking emergency services in 2006. In addition, cranial trauma was the leading cause of mortality from the emergency department (accounting for 38% of the mortality rate).
History
Before the Khmer Rouge era, what was then the Calmette Foundation Clinic was a private hospitalPrivate hospital
A private hospital is a hospital owned by a profit company or a non-profit organisation and privately funded through payment for medical services by patients themselves, by insurers, or by foreign embassies. This practice is very common in the United States and Australia...
for the wealthy. In 1974, the clinic was closed and educated individuals including those working at Calmette either fled abroad or were executed if they could not pose as being uneducated.
In 1979 after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, Revolution Hospital as it had been renamed had only 3 doctors out of the only 40 estimated to be left in the entire country. A team of Vietnamese doctors was brought in, soon to be joined by Cubans
Cuban medical internationalism
Cuban medical internationalism is the Cuban programme, since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, of sending Cuban medical personnel overseas, particularly to Latin America, Africa and, more recently, Oceania, and of bringing medical students and patients to Cuba...
, East Germans, Russians and Bulgarians. French had been the language of medicine in Cambodia, but soon it became multilingual. and Dr Heng Tay Khy who was named chief of surgery, spoke six languages.
In 1989, Médecins du Monde
Médecins du Monde
Médecins du Monde or Doctors of the World, is a non-governmental humanitarian aid organisation created in March 1980 by 15 French doctors, including Bernard Kouchner after he had left Médecins Sans Frontières , the aid society which he had co-founded earlier in 1971...
conducted a study that recommended the hospital be reestablished as a public facility
Public hospital
A public hospital or government hospital is a hospital which is owned by a government and receives government funding. This type of hospital provides medical care free of charge, the cost of which is covered by the funding the hospital receives....
. At the time, it was 90 percent reserved for high ranking officials and 10 percent for the poor. The French NGO recommended the allocation of resources be reversed. Further, the report recommended massive renovations and reconstruction costing $3 million, and that the name be changed to Calmette Hospital.
These changes, funded by the French government
Government of France
The government of the French Republic is a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the fifth Republic. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic"...
and with donations from a variety of other nations since, including Japan, have given Phnom Penh the well-equipped facility it has today. There are 203 beds, 101 of them medical and 57 for surgical patients. Other beds are in the emergency, anaesthetic recovery, maternity and gynecology areas. A modern laboratory wing performs testing procedures and there are x-ray facilities.
Plans for the future include expansion of the cardiac treatment center, a new facility for the treatment of monks and work on the intensive care and emergency units.
Governance
This hospital has an unusual statute, with managerial autonomy and a system of cost recovery that currently provides 64% of the hospital’s income. Since 1994, it has benefited from a French cooperation program. The French NGO, Médecins du MondeMédecins du Monde
Médecins du Monde or Doctors of the World, is a non-governmental humanitarian aid organisation created in March 1980 by 15 French doctors, including Bernard Kouchner after he had left Médecins Sans Frontières , the aid society which he had co-founded earlier in 1971...
, has been present at Calmette since 1990, providing support for "Medicine B", the indigent sector of the medical department in which services provided do not require a charge ("Medicine A" services must be paid for).
Emergency services
Calmette Hospital has two ambulanceAmbulance
An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...
s available to conduct its emergency medical services of which, one ambulance is permanently on the field and is used primarily for blood transfusion
Blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of receiving blood products into one's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used in a variety of medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood...
services while the other is located at the hospital’s emergency entrance on call when needed. A driver, nurse and/or doctor rotate as part of the emergency response teams. Occasionally, a resident may replace the emergency doctor.
About 40% of emergency patients reach the hospital via ambulance. It takes on average four hours to transport a patient to the emergency department. This value takes into account patients being transported from Kandal Province
Kandal Province
Kandal is a province of Cambodia. Its capital is Ta Khmao town . The province completely surrounds, but does not include, the national capital Phnom Penh...
in addition to those from the outskirts of the city. However, many patients simply walk into the emergency department on foot or by the help relatives.
Issues
Calmette’s biggest problems is funding. The facility runs on a budget of approximately 1 million a year, part of which comes from the Ministry of HealthMinistry of Health, Cambodia
The Ministry of Health is the government ministry responsible for governing healthcare, the healthcare industry, public health and health-related NGOs in Cambodia. The Ministry governs and regulates the activity of medical professionals, hospitals and clinics in the country. The current Minister...
and part from fee-paying patients. The mandate of Calmette is to treat the poor and there is always a shortfall as 50% of patients were from indigent backgrounds in a nation lacking social security provisions. International donors make up the difference and the French government is still a major supporter.
Diamond Island Tragedy
In the aftermath of the Diamond Island tragedy, during which 456 people were trampled to death, Calmette Hospital was a key facility in the treatment and identification of victims of the stampede. According to hospital officials, 264 people sought treatment at Calmette Hospital in the wake of the disaster, overwhelming the hospital’s facilities.Victims of the tragedy received free medical treatment after Prime Minister Hun Sen
Hun Sen
Hun Sen is the current Prime Minister of Cambodia.He has been the sole leader of the Cambodian People's Party , which has governed Cambodia since the Vietnamese-backed overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979...
committed the government to pay for treatment of injuries inside Cambodia or overseas if necessary.
External links
- Calmette Hospital. The Cambodia DailyThe Cambodia DailyThe Cambodia Daily is Cambodia's first English-language daily newspaper. It was started in 1993 by Bernard Krisher, an American journalist. Krisher hired two young and relatively inexperienced journalists, Barton Biggs and Robin McDowell, as the paper's first editors. The first issue was published...