Healthcare for Women in Cambodia

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Help Build 30 Clinics in Cambodia for Women
There is a lot you can do to help improve the lives of thousands of women who are fighting vaccine-preventable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis, and treatable viruses such as HIV. See how your contribution can help.

ActionAid Builds 30 Clinics in Cambodia for Women

Only five percent of Cambodia’s rural women have access to any type of medical care. Even more alarmingly, the limited healthcare facilities available to women in these rural areas frequently run out of the critical medical supplies they need to save lives.

In the absence of proper health services, women use traditional midwives who cannot observe even basic sanitary procedures due to the lack of running water. One out every 200 births is fatal for the mother, since as only 32 percent of the women in Cambodia have a skilled birth attendant during delivery. It is estimated that 99 percent of these deaths in childbirth could be prevented by better healthcare delivery systems in rural areas.

Vor Lin is battling to escape being another fatal statistic. Now thirty-six years old, she has been ill for years, but she has never seen a doctor. Despite Vor Lin’s desperate need for treatment, her family barely has enough money to meet their basic needs. The cost of a doctor is simply out of reach.

“What we get from our farm is not enough to feed my family. There is no way that I will have enough money to cure my disease,” explained Lin. “Even if we had enough money for the doctor fees, the health center is 20 miles away from my house and I also cannot afford transportation. Visiting the hospital is the last measure for someone who is dying, not someone who is ill,” she added.

Vor Lin is not alone. In Cambodia, more than 4.5 million people live on about $1.50 per day. In response, ActionAid is setting up 30 community health centers to provide women in Cambodia with access to experienced birth attendants, contraception, medical supplies and basic check-ups. These community health centers will provide 20,000 people in rural Cambodia with healthcare. The project will also train 12 health facilitators who will be tasked with training 50 additional women across 30 villages to become volunteer health facilitators.

These new health facilitators will provide regular workshops on healthcare in their villages. Women will learn about proper hygiene, sanitation, maternal health, children’s health, sexually transmitted diseases and prevention strategies.

Since 2000, ActionAid has been working in Cambodia in partnership with Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO)s, social movements and activists. We critically engage governments, international organizations and private companies to promote pro-poor policies, programs and practices. Our innovative program work, social mobilization and policy advocacy focus on issues of women's rights, food security, education, governance, human security in conflict and emergencies and HIV/AIDS.

Cultural norms in Cambodia prevent women from talking about their sexual health, and young girls are taught to hide concerns relating to their bodies. This reticence poses a serious problem for women and girls in Cambodia, which has Asia’s highest percentage of people living with HIV/AIDS.

But there is a lot you can do to help improve the lives of thousands of women like Von Lin and others who are fighting vaccine-preventable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis, and treatable viruses such as HIV.

Your contribution of:

  • $90 will provide 30 women with access to health facilities
  • $250 will provide two villages with regular health workshops for one year
  • $500 will provide health kits for 30 health facilitators
  • $1,000 will provide enough medicine and supplies for one community health center
  • $5,000 will provide an emergency referral system across 30 villages for one year

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