We are honored to make annual trips to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where we work and partner with Angkor Hospital for Children. This privately funded teaching hospital was founded by famous Japanese photographer Kenro Izu who witnessed the desperate poverty and need in Cambodia. We work for five days and treat between 20 to 30 cleft lip/palate patients in the hospital’s single operating room. Some families travel an entire day to come and see us, often by bus or on foot or a combination of the two. Our Dental teams that travel with us work in the Angkor Hospital Dental Clinic and in the rural villages of Cambodia to provide the much needed dental care. On these missions, our Dental Teams routinely perform more than 100 dental procedures.
A unique situation: Because the doctors, nurses and staff at the hospital are extremely educated, willing to learn and very hard working, our goal is to teach them to be self-sufficient by serving their own population. To facilitate this, local doctors scrub in for all of the cases. We teach them how to perform the surgery, and we deliver educational lectures to the staff. So we are not only helping the many poor families and children in need, but we are also changing the place by training the local staff and doctors to do the surgeries. We hope to help the country to help itself. Long term, our goal is to achieve this type of arrangement for all of our sites. For more information, visit www.angkorhospital.org.
Why Cambodia?
Cambodia is a country now finding its identity. It went through a very tough time with a brutal regime. Many many Cambodians were killed, and still this country remains positive in every dimension.
It is a country where calm remains within the storm. It is a country that desperately needs our help.
