Physical Health Cambodia Project #41910

Supply Healthcare to Floating Villages in Cambodia

by The Lake Clinic - Cambodia

Supply Healthcare to Floating Villages in Cambodia

Project Report | Apr 19, 2023
1 January to 14 April 2023

By Jon Morgan | Founder and Director, The Lake Clinic - Cambodia

A distressed child is comforted by our Team Leader

The first trimester 2023 has been a busy one for The Lake Clinic Cambodia. The Tonle Sap Lake is always a challenging environment in which to work. Once a reliable ebb and flow of water into Tonle Sap Lake is a thing the past. The rapid lowering of water levels in the lake makes transporting clinical staff and supplies very much an heroic adventure on a weekly basis.

We persist.

Clinics Held: 108 Clinical Cases: 7,587 Health Education: 3,991

Dental Cases: 560 Oral Health Education: 3,902 Antenatal Care: 76

Birth Spacing: 117 Eye Care: 413 Vaccinations: 3,019 - including 2,801 COVID-19

Mental Health: 73 counseling sessions Hospital Referrals: 16

The Tonle Sap Lake...the entire Mekong Delta is facing the "perfect storm" of changing weather patterns combined with the already constructed 160 hydroelectric dams along the Mekong and its tributaries -- more than 200 are planned! The Lake was once home to more than 2,000 species of fish, and many of those were migratory and relied upon the five, distinct pulses of floods to bring them from the Mekong, up the Tonle Sap River to the Tonle Sap Lake where they would spawn in its flooded forests. Where just a few years ago the lake's peak level would be 16 or 17 meters deep, this past season saw only a 7 meter rise.

This is a disaster in the making. More than 1.5 million people depend upon the lake's fisheries for their livlihoods as well as a source of much needed protein. The connection between an economy and health needs should be obvious.

An older child is examined by Prof Jameel Winter

Sometimes we work outside of our floating clinic.

Rapidly lowering water levels on the Stung Sen.

Outreach staff in what should be a flooded forest.

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