Quarterly Review 4 – 2023
Sadly, in the early morning of December 17th our Head of IT Department, Mr KEO Bunthoeun, suddenly passed away. He was just 44 years old and leaves his wife and young son behind. It created a huge gap in his small family and in our NGO’s management team where he worked more than 11 years. The loss is felt deeply by all of us and it will be a challenge for MoPoTsyo to replace him with someone who has his capacities, commitment and loyalty.
Expansion activities:
Two doctors received the refresher training at Center of Hope for 2 weeks: one is from Svay Chek Referral Hospital for the existing program in Thmar Pouk OD, while the other one is for the new program in Mekong OD in Phnom Penh: In December 2023 during the visit of our Swiss friends, we donated the materials needed to set up consultation service, RDF and automation system there at Samdach Ov SamdachMer Referral Hospital. The 1st sessions for Laboratory service and medical consultations were done on 5 and 8 December respectively with 27 members patients attending. To introduce the new peer educators, urine strip distributions took place in one commune in Cheung Prey OD and in two communes in Chhlong OD. At Cheung Prey Referral hospital, the first medical consultations took place in The 2nd medical consultation session happened on 3 November with 52 patients so service uptake is good. At OD Kang Meas: our peer educators conducted urine-glucose strip distribution in 11 villages, Reay Pay commune, Reay Pay Health center (7603 strips) for health promotion and services awareness. Ministry of Health and Dangkao Hospital Director suggested us to include Dangkao OD into our planning for 2024 – 2026. Also in November we visited the Referral Hospital of Prek Prasop district (part of Chhlong OD) in Kratie province to discuss setting up a peer educator network there too and including during 2024. The existing program at the referral hospital of Chhlong is on the other side of the Mekong.
Refresher Training. On 14 and 15 December we held a meeting with all our peer network managers from the provinces with a selected group of peer educators, an internal MoPoTsyo meeting with focus on capacity building, streamlining, feedback and recommendations. We could use the opportunity to convey key-messages about adaptation to the new environment in which we operate with the HEQIP program being launched and adapt to it where we can. The meeting was closed with encouraging speech from MoH PMD Vice Director
Our laboratory: A hired Laboratory consultant is strengthening capacity of our lab to follow correct procedures and record their activities as in the Standard Operating Procedures. Also, the administration part of the lab had to be separated from the actual lab with the machines. We modified the lab with inserted glass wall and door. We include serum “urea test” in our Biochemistry lab result, so now it consists of 32 results. Together with the regular results over time from serum creatinine, eGFR and urine albumin-creatinine ratio, we monitor Chronic Kidney Disease and its progression over time. Almost half of our diabetic patients are affected. Slowing its progression and protocolizing individual trend-monitoring of these kidney function indicators are public health priorities for Cambodian diabetic and hypertension patients, which should have some implications for how to organize effective secondary prevention at health center level for such patients, with automatic alerts for patients who progress faster.
New MoU: We submitted to Ministry of Health a new draft Memorandum of Agreement for 3 years 2024 – 2026 with 13 support letters from 13 Provincial Governors and 1 support letter from Preventive Medicine Department. Now we must wait for result. In the meantime, we cannot import medicines.
Logistics: In December medicines arrived by aeroplane but they were accompanied by wrong documents. So they remain stuck at the customs. We have not been able to solve it yet. We have to start a new process with new documents but that can only be done with a new MoU. There are also sea-freights arriving but it will also remain stuck without new MoU.
Other Events and Meetings:
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WHO supported National Center for Health Promotion and MoH Preventive Medicine Department to organize at Himawari Hotel the 2023 World Diabetes Day on 20 November H.E. Prof. Chheang Ra, the new Minister, joined and spoke. He announced improvements in access to medicines for patients and mentioned his awareness of the variations in costs and logistics issues.
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WorldBank held a stakeholder meeting on 1 november to get ideas on how to improve the primary care system for NCD. MoPoTsyo joined.
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MoH with support from WHO organized a STEP Survey meeting 27+28 in Siem Reap to discuss the creation of the report. This is still being finalised.
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On 18 December we joined an IEC materials development meeting organized by PSI and MoH.
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Health Promotion: On 15 December, the TTK TVK recorded a program about Diabetes with participation of 10 Peer Educators from MoPoTsyo who spoke about how they can live with diabetes in a successful way. It was funded by WHO.
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We received a 3-day visit from our Swiss supportive friends, now via Swiss foundation Zoé.
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We held the annual staff retreat for year review and planning, this year in Preah Vihear.