Health care policy and administration

The Ministry of Health has called on the people to take 11 preventive measures to protect themselves from food or alcohol poisoning during the Khmer New Year celebration. Those who felt unwell should immediately seek medical treatment, it said. On Friday, the ministry said hundreds ...

The Women’s Affairs Ministry last week launched the Nokor Tep hospital in Dangkor district in a bid to provide female reproductive services to those less fortunate. Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavi said the hospital’s first task is to secure equipment and human resources. ...

More than 1,000 cases of dengue fever have been reported so far this year, a number similar to that reported over the same period last year, said Leang Rithea, the dengue control programme manager at the National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control. Rithea ...

In what may become yet another populist pledge, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday said he is considering giving $50 to every woman who gives birth in Cambodia to decrease child mortality and tackle malnutrition of mothers. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen today announced plans to offer free health care to cyclo drivers and to form a foundation to help preserve them as a tourist attraction. ...

The Health Minister has ordered civil servants to prioritise the implementation of new social security services for public officials, former government workers and veterans, which came into force at the start of this year. ...

After a yearlong campaign to register health providers, the Ministry of Health and medical councils now say they must turn their focus to training and oversight of nurses and doctors in the field. ...

In yet another potentially major new benefit to Cambodian workers ahead of next year’s national election, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Sunday announced that employees in some of the country’s key industries would soon be able to receive free checkups and treatment at state hospitals. ...

Despite killing some 800 people in the Kingdom each year, rabies has been largely off the public health radar. Plans are in the works for a nationwide response, but can funding catch up? ...

Parents of children born to surrogate mothers in Cambodia will be required to provide the government with yearly updates of their child’s mental and physical development, according to new guidelines officially disseminated to embassies for the first time yesterday. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday announced that the government has plans to have a functioning social security system operational in the country by 2025, including universal health care, unemployment insurance and old-aged pensions. ...

The Ministry of Health acknowledged yesterday in its annual report that the quality of health care services in the Kingdom remains poor, with experts concluding that the slow improvement is due to a lack of government commitment.   ...

Authorities are preparing a draft law to make surrogacy legal with a range of protections for the women and babies involved. News of the move emerged yesterday after a meeting between Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn and newly appointed United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative to Cambodia ...

The ban on surrogate pregnancies announced by the health minister on Monday will remain in place until the government drafts a law protecting Cambodian women giving birth to the children of other parents, an official said on Thursday. ...

The health minister has banned surrogate pregnancy arrangements in the country, putting the brakes on what appeared to be a quickly expanding—if controversial—industry. The move comes just days after the justice minister called for the practice to be outlawed. ...

Amid reports of the emergence of the Zika virus in Myanmar and the discovery of the first birth defect believed linked to the virus in Vietnam, two researchers with Phnom Penh’s Pasteur Institute have concluded that Cambodia is at high risk of its own Zika ...

Health Minister Mam Bun Heng has issued a directive for all private maternity clinics and hospitals to establish neo-natal intensive care units – which treat seriously ill newborns and premature infants – in order to further reduce maternal and child deaths in the Kingdom.​ ...

The Health Ministry has ordered all provincial health departments to print leaflets about the Zika virus to distribute them throughout the Kingdom. According to a Facebook post on Monday by the Health Ministry’s Communicable Disease Control (CDC) Department, Health Ministry spokesman Ly Sovann said: “All people ...

The Ministry of Health is taking precautionary measures to prevent the transmission of Zika and is asking the public to do the same, as the virus has emerged in other Southeast Asian countries and could make a comeback in the Kingdom. ...

Days after a law went into effect requiring all cigarette packages sold in Cambodia to be plastered with graphic images of the health effects of smoking—blackened lungs and an infant on a respirator—there was little evidence of the new packaging in the capital. ...

Cambodia has the highest rate of untreated cleft lip and palate in infants, out of more than 100 low- and middle-income countries, a new global study has found.   ...

Two measles cases investigated by the government in recent weeks have been confirmed positive, bringing the total number to five this year and causing concern among health officials about a possible outbreak after the World Health Organization declared the country measles-free just last year.   ...

A new treatment designed to stabilize those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has pro­v­en highly effective and could be used to help the roughly quarter of Cambodians who have the mental illness, according to a new study.   ...

Cambodia’s public health workers are underpaid and poorly trained, with a whopping 98 per cent relying on a second job to supplement their income, according to a recent report. ...