Chapter 19 - Health

Summary

Background

The health sector in Cambodia is characterized by under-developed infrastructure and low quality service provision. Health care staffing is in short supply, of increasingly unequal distribution, but disinclined to work in the rural and remote areas of the country. There are limited means of transferring patients out, especially in poor, from remote areas of the country. The results of the perceptions survey of communities on access to health care services and the quality of care confirm this assessment. Much remains to be done to improve the health and sanitary conditions for the majority of people to an acceptable level, especially in the rural areas. The use of public medical and health care facilities is low both because of low income and insufficient health infrastructure and personnel.

The RCG has given high priority to the provision of health services in the Rectangular Strategy since lack of access to health services by the poor worsens the deprivation caused by income poverty. Low income limits access to health care. Conversely, poor health limits one's physical and mental capabilities leading to loss of earning potential and thus contributes to the person's descent to poverty. Thus key health parameters are rightly recognized as MDGs by the UN.

There have been some success stories in public health sector in the last few years, notably the eradication of poliomyelitis, the lowering of the death toll from malaria, and an expansion of the health care apparatus across the country. Notwithstanding these Cambodia is facing considerable challenges in the health sector. In the struggle against the spread of HIV/AIDS, Cambodia has made rapid progress in reaching the relevant MDG. The rate of prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Cambodia has dropped by nearly one third, declining from 3.9% of the population in 1997 to 1.2% in 2003, and improved further to 0.9% in 2007. But this achievement masks the substantial increase in the cases of transmission of the disease from husband to wife and from mother to child and the increase in the HIV/AIDS prevalence among young people, especially the vulnerable group.