Kantha Bopha

Under the name of Kantha Bopha , four children's hospitals have been built in Phnom Penh , Cambodia since 1992 at the request of the Cambodian state under the direction of the Swiss pediatrician Beat Richner . In Siem Reap there is a fifth children's hospital, Jayavarman VII , which he founded and which also belongs to the Kantha Bopha group.

Origin of the name

Kantha Bopha ("fragrant flower") was the name of a daughter of King Norodom Sihanouk who died in childhood .

Hospitals

Kantha Bopha I

In December 1991, the Cambodian government asked Beat Richner, who had already worked in the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospital in Phnom Penh in the mid-1970s, to rebuild and manage the hospital that had been destroyed during the rule of the Khmer Rouge . Reconstruction began in March 1992, and the inauguration took place on September 22nd of the same year.

Kantha Bopha II

In October 1996, the second hospital in Phnom Penh was inaugurated in the presence of the Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk and the Swiss Federal President Jean-Pascal Delamuraz . It was built on a piece of land made available by the king.

Jayavarman VII (Kantha Bopha III)

In March 1999, a third hospital of the Kantha Bopha Group, Jayavarman VII , was opened in Siem Reap near the famous Angkor temples as an outstation for Kantha Bopha I and II on a property made available by Prime Minister Hun Sen. It contains a large prevention and health center including an outpatient clinic and an acute hospital for seriously ill children.

Thanks to a land donation from the government, a maternity ward for HIV- positive mothers has been in operation next to the Jayavarman VII Hospital in Siem Reap since October 2001 . This is where the transmission of HIV from mother to newborn child can be prevented.

The hospital was expanded to include five new wards (300 beds) in 2008 and another five wards (200 beds) and an intensive care unit in 2011. It is currently considered the largest children's hospital in the world.

Kantha Bopha IV

The fourth hospital in Phnom Penh was inaugurated in December 2005. It had become necessary because Kantha Bopha I was partially in a very poor structural condition and suffered from capacity problems (it has since been renovated).

Kantha Bopha V

Since Kantha Bopha IV reached the limits of its capacity, it was decided to build the fifth hospital. It was inaugurated in December 2007.

financing

Children are cared for free of charge in all hospitals. 90% of the families affected cannot pay anything, and many even have to be reimbursed for their travel expenses. The hospitals are largely financed through private donations (mostly from Switzerland), but also through state support. Since January 2005, the Cambodian government has paid 10% of the annual operating costs. Similarly, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Swiss government of the Foundation for receiving financial support, according to the current agreement from 2013 to 2015 year CHF 4 million (EUR 3.2 million). Overall, the SDC has supported hospitals since 1994 with almost CHF 40 million. A large part of the budget of around CHF 34 million is borne by around 100,000 private donors. Richner traveled regularly to Switzerland to solicit donations and support with his musical performances as a beatocello and with lectures. So Richner et al. a. up to 2017 at a benefit gala organized by Circus Knie in Zurich and organized weekly information evenings combined with a cello concert in the Jayavarman VII Hospital for tourists and visitors. The financial administration is carried out by the Children's Hospital Kantha Bopha Foundation, Dr. med. Beat Richner in Zurich, whose work is supported in Germany by the Förderverein Kantha Bopha e. V. supports.

Personnel body

The staff consists of a total of 2,400 Cambodian employees (annual report 2012) and until 2016 the only foreigners, the founder and doctor Richner and the studied biologist Denis Laurent. Richner always attached great importance to the statement that there was no corruption in his hospitals . The reason he cited was the adequate remuneration of all employees. In March 2017 it became known that Beat Richner had to relinquish the management of the hospitals for health reasons. The aim has always been to set up the hospitals in such a way that they function independently. His long-time friend Peter Studer, also a pediatrician, took over the management, primarily to provide "administrative support", while Denis Laurent managed the local business. Peter Studer died in May 2020, his successor was the management team, consisting of three local specialists, with the support of the Swiss Foundation and Peter Studer's widow, Geneviève Cattin, who was newly elected to the Board of Trustees.

certificate of achievement

The following services were provided in 2014:

• The five hospitals treat 85% of sick children across the country
• around 2500 jobs for Cambodian doctors and nurses
• 696,329 outpatient treatments for sick children
• 122,086 hospitalizations of seriously ill children
• 18,335 surgical interventions
• 249,490 vaccinations
• 19,361 births in maternity leave

Training and research facility

Kantha Bopha IV in Phnom Penh and Jayavarman VII in Siem Reap are university hospitals that train students, doctors, nurses, carers and technical staff for all of Cambodia.

In the Jayavarman VII Tuberculosis Polyclinic, a new diagnostic method was developed with which tuberculosis, which is usually difficult to diagnose in children and is often undetected worldwide, can be accurately determined. On February 9, 2011, a study about this was published in the European Journal of Pediatrics in collaboration with the Infectious Diseases Department of the Children's Hospital Zurich .

Documents

Books by Beat Richner

• Kantha Bopha. As a Swiss doctor in Cambodia . NZZ, Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-85823-570-9
• Hope for the children of Kantha Bopha . NZZ, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-03823-105-3
• Ambassador. Between life and survival . Rio bei Elster, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-907668-80-1

Movies

• Money or Blood (2004, Georges Gachot)
• 15 years of Kantha Bopha (2007, Georges Gachot)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ SDC: Media information ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated September 11, 2012.  
2. ↑ According to the 2013 annual report (PDF) ( Memento of the original dated February 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 6 
3. ↑ Aargauer pediatrician: "I do everything humanly possible to help in Cambodia" in the Aargauer Zeitung on April 5, 2017
4. ↑ Sacha Ercolani: Sad farewell: Pediatrician Beat Richner is more ill than previously thought. In: Aargauer Zeitung. 4th November 2017.
5. ↑ Flavia Schlittler: Beat Richner's successor has died. In: Blick.ch , May 8, 2020.
6. ↑ Dr. med. Peter Studer (March 14, 1947 - May 6, 2020 ) press release, May 7, 2020.
7. ↑ Advertisement in daily newspapers from January 2015 (PDF) ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ European Journal of Pediatrics, February 9, 2011 (Abstract: [1] , Report: [2]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and remove it then this note. )