US millitary launch new humanitarian assistance platform

                     

 Outside the freshly painted Buddhist Pagoda, hundreds of Khmer people gathered. When a Western man walked through the crowd to get inside the pagoda, the people surrounded him and pointed to rashes and tumors, and in their native language, explained their illnesses to him.

Inside the temple, a collaboration of doctors from the Cambodian Royal Armed Force, Children Surgical Center and the US Air force, worked rapidly, in efforts to see as many patients as possible in the course of their four day mission.

The US Air force, organized the medical mission as a new humanitarian assistance platform.

 In Cambodia, affordability and access to medical care are next to nonexistence in rural areas. The medical mission, Pacific Angel United Force, brought primary, eye and dental care to four remote sites in Cambodia.

 Over 65 men and women from the US Air force were involved in the mission.

Each day they helped over 800 patients for free. Many patients had diseases in their latest stages, conditions that are virtually nonexistent in developed countries.

 In the past, humanitarian efforts from the US military have come in the form of disaster relief – such as is currently occurring in Myanmar – or have been offered when forces are performing exercises in countries that need assistance.

 This mission had three goals; to provide humanitarian assistance to a developing nation; to create good will towards the US, and to support the medical infrastructure of Cambodia, said mission leader Major Brad Cogswell.

 “We’re working with NGO’s and the government to improve the public health infrastructure of the country,” he said. “We’re trying to find what the gaps are and fill them.”

 One of the most important things that this mission accomplished was the opportunity for local doctors to learn new techniques and skills from military medics. The training doctors gain increases their ability to help patients.

 But learning went both ways.

 “The Khmer doctors are very efficient with their use of supplies. I think that we learned ways to approach procedures that will help us out. It was a mutual learning experience”, said Cogswell.

 Despite the thousands of Cambodians that were helped from May 25 to 29, when the mission left, a large problem remained. The medical infrastructure that developed countries take for granted – such as the availability of doctors or ambulances – does not exist in Cambodia.

 Even patients seen by the mission, are not saved. They have been treated for immediate, visible problems and symptoms but not for their chronic diseases. In some villages, entire families suffer from chronic arsenic poisoning from drinking contaminated well water.   

While medical missions provide relief for thousands of people, they do not create the sustainable system that Cambodia badly needs.

“How do you encourage a government, any government, to focus on the health care of its people?” said Cogswell. “The dilemma is whether health care is a privilege or a right.”