Sharing and passing on medical knowledge. This is the credo to which the Kantha Bopha hospitals have been committed since they first opened in 1992. Children can only be treated properly and correctly if the staff are well-trained. Our hospitals are university hospitals - this is where the doctors of the country are trained. Here, they receive the tools they need to help children in need from experienced specialists.
Hy Soklay is one of around 800 doctors who work for Kantha Bopha. When the heart centre was opened at the hospital in Siem Reap in 2011, he was part of the team that learned all about open-heart surgery and cardiac catheterisation. ‘We were a total of 17 persons. We did a lot of training, looked at particular cases and performed surgery under supervision,’ he says.
He learned his skills from, among others, Prof. Dr. med. Oliver Kretschmar, who is head of the cardiology department at the University Children's Hospital in Zurich and a member of the Foundation board of the children's hospitals in Cambodia. With an initially small local team, he built the heart centre in Siem Reap at the request of the hospital's founder, Dr. med. Beat Richner, and trained the local staff. ‘The number of cases was high right from the start,’ says Oliver Kretschmar. This is because, for the first time, the most common congenital heart diseases could be treated. A second heart centre was opened in Phnom Penh in 2019 to relieve the pressure on the team and to reduce the travel distances for the sick children and their families.
But where would the specialists come from? Hy Soklay is one of three doctors who moved from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to share their knowledge with the newly formed heart team. Specialised cardiology tests (cardiac ultrasound, MRI, CT), procedures, care, and follow-up -they practised them together. ‘And I really enjoyed sharing my experience,’ says the heart surgeon. He continues to work in Phnom Penh with his colleagues Ung Sameth and Lomg Ramy. Both heart centres are managed by the chief heart surgeon Pon Ladine, who commutes back and forth between the two sites.
Oliver Kretschmar is satisfied with the development of the centres. ‘Cardiology is a flagship area – and the teams are doing a really good job.’ However, he would like to see even closer collaboration between the two sites, with internal training and an exchange of experience. While Phnom Penh only performs heart surgery, Siem Reap offers less invasive procedures using cardiac catheters. ‘Good networking is important to ensure that children receive the best possible treatment.’
Oliver Kretschmar sees further potential for improvement, particularly in documenting procedures and defining workflows. ‘This will bring even more expertise and continuity into the processes.’ In the future, he could also imagine using mobile teams to organise follow-up visits for children - as is done in Canada and Australia, for example. ‘Currently, families have to come back to the hospital - perhaps we could spare our chronic patients the long and arduous journey.’
Incidentally, from January to August 2024, 497 open heart surgeries and 139 cardiac catheterisations were performed at our two centres.
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