A motorbike carrying four people is not unusual but I was slightly surprised to realise that Dad, driving, had one arm on the handlebars of a bicycle being driven home alongside the family. Ten year old boys line up two or three behind their underage driver alongside young families and crowds of teenagers. One father … More Driving Cambodia
When a patient is diagnosed with Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (DRTB), measures are put in place in an attempt to cure the patient as well as to hamper the bacteria’s transmission to other people, particularly close family and household contacts. In a third world setting DRTB mainly travels amongst the poor, who already have impaired health … More Banana fronds and Bamboo huts
Today I had the good fortune to experience some World AIDS Day health promotion activities in the hospital, coordinated by our TB Control Program staff. I attended the HIV Ward with two of our Social Workers and met with each patient briefly at their bedside, providing each person with a gift of healthy hot food … More World AIDS Day
Many words could be used to describe Cambodia, but this week nothing is more appropriate than “beautiful”, or in Khmer, “sah aht”. Apparently I arrived here for the wedding season, just as the tropical rains end and young couples lavishly celebrate their planned futures with family, friends and colleagues. During a month in Kampong Cham … More “Sah aht”
Motorbikes ruin photography here. You get a great shot lined up just in time to photograph the handlebars of a moped, or a chain of blurred bodies moving across the scene you’d intended which saunters out of sight before you can re-focus your lens. Some dedicated photography sessions will be needed to get a few … More Riverside Ramblings
The evenings in Kampong Cham come alive with young people on motorbikes. Three riding abreast equals at least six teenagers socialising as they cruise through the streets. Five is the most bodies I’ve sighted on a single moped to date. Helmets are an optional rarity. Another regular sight is these wooden wheelbarrows which have many … More How Many Cambodians Does It Take to Ride a Motorbike?
This morning our Ugandan housemate and I walked to the bus station through the Central Market (aka “the wild west”), giving way about as often as we were given way to by the hustling traffic. A throng of waiting passengers were already at the bus station. As we arrived our bedraggled looking bus pulled up … More Potholes to Phnom Penh
Last year a friend in East Timor recommended a book to me which totally transformed my previously defeatist view of the Third World. After reading the biography Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, my view of what can and is being done in the Third World was transformed. Paul Farmer has been working in Third … More The Human Element: Melinda Gates and Paul Farmer on Designing Global Health
As with my observations in East Timor last year, the average Cambodian adult weighs in the vicinity of 45 to 50kg. When ravaged by Tuberculosis, as so many here are, this average can plummet and it’s not so unusual to see adults weighing as little as, or even less than, 30kg. In East Timor I … More Weighing in on Cambodia
Living in the Tropics comes with its own set of challenges, especially when you are working around the Tuberculosis bacterium. Because it is such a potentially dangerous disease and transmitted through the air, infection control measures against Tuberculosis, known as “airborne precautions”, are an important protection. Airborne precautions in a health care setting require well … More Tuberculosis in the Tropics
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