Blood or Money

Blood or Money - that was the plea.

Dr Beat (Beatocello) Richner, a Swiss born peadetrician who is the founder and current director of the 4 Kantha Bopha pediatric hospitals in Cambodia, urged the older audience to give money, the younger to give blood, and those in between...both.

Last night we attended the Beatocello concert, in the auditorium on the grounds of the Jayavarman VII Hospital in Siem Reap. Beatocello played works for cello by J.S Bach, along with his own music, as well as informing the audience of tourists about the activities of the hospitals.

Each year the activities include:
- 600,000 visits by sick children;
-55,000 hospital admissions for severely sick children;
-9,000 surgical operations
-100,000 vaccinations;
-5,500 births.

With operating costs of over US $17 million a year, Kantha Bopha relies primarily on private donations. The hospital receives basically no funding or SUPPORT from the government, WHO or UNICEF. The hospitals provide free health care, given 95% of the population in the north and 90% of the population in the south is too poor to contribute.

The average hospitalization time is 5.5 days, costing around $170 - not alot considering Richner reflected on the $340 per night accommodation that visiting professors, NGO officials, specialists and medicos prefer at the Sofitel Hotel next door!!

The most pressing issue he tries to convey is the attitude of International organisations such as WHO and UNICEF towards health care in developing nations. They believe that health care in countries such as Cambodia should be 'primary' health care, where facilities match the economic situation of the country. Richner told of the importance of proper medical facilites in the detection of disease, and treatment. He has done much work on the prevention of HIV vertical transmission from Mothers to babies, but needs adequate facilities to maintain his succesful treatment...also...blood donations for transfusions.

Beatocello 4 kids

Tomorrow we are off to see Beat Richner do what he does best - play the cello, inform his audiences and encourage them to give freely. As founder of the Bopha hospitals, he is repsonsible for the provision of free health care services to children in Cambodia.