Until now Cambodia has had minimal Coronavirus infections. Today’s count sits at a total of 121 cases and 0 deaths. However in the face of two different clusters with contact tracing becoming more complex, and hindered by a reluctance of some cases to share the information needed to track their close contacts, Khmer New Year … More Complex and Confusing
Dr Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health, talks about “oops” health care leading to “stupid deaths”. I have often referred to the destitution seen in Cambodia, caused by people needing to pay from their pockets for all health care costs – that’s “Out Of Pocket Spending”, or “oops”. Health care in Cambodia, and across … More Oops and Stupid Deaths
Mary, as I have been calling her, has remained severely malnourished now for four months of her almost seven months of life. Her five year old sister has a neurological disability caused by TB Meningitis, which happens to children when their TB disease goes unchecked for too long. Noone has ever identified the adult who … More When God Syndrome Gets in the Way
Tuberculosis is an insidious and a complicated disease. Six years ago I met a young man of about 30 years old who hailed from India. He presented to an Australian hospital with persistent abdominal symptoms. Eventually doctors performed investigations and found multiple lesions on the lining around his abdominal organs. Whilst awaiting results from the … More Fighting Felons
This is a World Health Organisation growth chart for a child from birth to six months old. The Y axis follows weight in kilograms, while the X axis follows the age in weeks to 12 weeks, then in months to six months. The coloured curves traveling from the left to the right of the chart … More TB? Or Not TB?
At about 23 years old, in the pub one night I announced “politics doesn’t interest me”. A friend replied “when you start nursing you’ll become political because you’ll be concerned for your patients”. This was a true prediction, but what it missed was an equally true unfolding interest in human psychology, not so much from … More Injustice in Health Part I
Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high There’s a land that I dreamed of Once in a lullaby A few weeks ago I saw the recent NZ film Hunt for the Wilderpeople at the cinema with Karen. An indigenous teenager from one of Australia’s most remote communities, she laughed loudly and often, sometimes at inappropriate … More The Magic is Always There
The average number of individuals directly infected by one infectious case during the entire infectious period of a specific disease is defined as the basic reproductive rate. Infectious diseases have individual characteristics, such as the route of transmission and the number of organisms needed to cause infection, which make this calculation different for each disease. … More Disease and Discrimination
In 2013 a wealthy American teenager killed four people in a drink-drive accident. His defence lawyers argued that he was ill-equipped for real life due to his wealthy lifestyle. The judge agreed and he was sentenced to ten years probation, with no jail time. One of his defence team coined the phrase “affluenza” to describe … More Affluenza
Although my European holiday is wonderful, I miss Cambodia very much. Everything I do here is coloured by questions as to whether this is the best use of my time and money. As one example of many, today the landmine victim who I support messaged me to say hello. He mentioned in his limited English … More Unfathomable
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