Healthcare a Ready Target for Parties
A number of political parties are promising improved ethics and practices in national medicine. (25 June 2008)
As the country heads into a campaign period, competingparties have found an easy target as they search for failings in the currentadministration: a weak healthcare system they call unethical andcorrupt. Government health officials say they are improving theethics and practices of the nation's doctors step by step, but competing parties are using the rural hospitals, which are often rundown, and underpaid doctors, to build campaign platforms against the ruling party. Cambodian People's Party lawmaker Chiem Yeap said the partyhas run the government for 30 years and is working to improve the healthcarefield, especially in rural areas. Already, a policy of free vaccinations andother treatments is in place, he said. Other parties, however, say that in practice, there is nofree health care, as individual doctors ask for money from their patients. And with a one-monthcampaign period that begins Thursday, they will seek to convince voters theyhave the best new policies for the ailing healthcare system. Doctors in the provinces have no ethics, hospitals are oldand unsanitary and some doctors act as though they can cure the ills ofeveryone, from children to the elderly, said Muth Chantha, spokesman for the NorodomRanariddh Party. The NRP has several strategies prepared to fix the healthsystem, including the reform of Cambodia'scode of ethics, more money for doctors, improved technical tools for clinics and hospitals,and a larger budget for the Ministry of Health. The party would also like tosee true, free healthcare for the nation's poor, he said. Free treatment for the poor and a larger budget for thehealth sector are on the platform of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party. "Public hospitals are full of corruption and have noprofessional ethics," party leader Sam Rainsy said. Seng Sokheng, secretary-general of the Hang Dara DemocraticMovement Party, said the party the party "will eliminate all problemswhere people meet difficulties," he said. The party does not want people to fear the hospitals, hesaid, and would seek to bring the lowest cost of medicine to people, followingthe example of Thailand. "Now not only the poor, but the rich have no confidencein the health system of Cambodia,"said Ban Sophal, president of the Society of Justice Party, which he said wouldseek to provide modern tools and better hospital buildings to healthcareworkers. "I will not let people die because they have no moneyto go to the hospital," he said. "My party will be responsible onthis."