I want to share with you my experience trying to find a doctor in Cambodia. So a few hours after crossing the border into Cambodia my body started aching. I thought I just needed a good night sleep to let my body rest. Well that wasn’t the case and it wasn’t just me. My teammate was sick also. The next day the fever starts and we are heading to the bush with our contacts. Two days in the bush, no peace and quiet, sleeping on the floor and fever does not equal fun. Cambodia is not the place you want to be sick or get medical treatment but we had to give it a shot. The fever wasn’t leaving and we felt horrible. My team and translator pile into the van to go to the nearest town to see the doctor on New Year’s Day. As we are entering the town our translator turns around to ask us if we want public or private hospital. Cambodia is rated among the 10 worse hospitals in the world so I immediately made the smart decision and said private hospital. Ten minutes later we discover that private hospital means- private residence. Immediately we were uneasy. The doctors family was still in their pajamas hanging outside the house. We asked to leave and go the public hospital but we were informed that we couldn’t because the doctor had been contacted and was on the way back to the house to see us. So we nervously wait. Finally we could leave because it had been ten minutes and the doctor still wasn’t back. Next stop, public hospital, found out when we got there that the doctor doesn’t work on Saturdays. Plan C- go to a clinic to get blood work done. There is a clinic on every corner. This shouldn’t be too hard right? Well, the first few clinics we went to turned us away. One clinic found out we had fevers and said they couldn’t help. So after several failed clinic attempts we went to another private doctor. This one looked nice, but he was too busy and wanted us to come back after lunch. On the way to lunch we stopped at another clinic. This one helped us! Took our blood and said to come back after lunch for results. Went back after lunch for results – not really any results. Found out we were sick but didn’t know what we had. So he wanted us to go to see the doctor. Took the paperwork back to the doctor’s office. He was closed. His wife said he went to the hospital and we would have to go there to see him. Last stop, public hospital, which was worse than the hospitals I saw in Africa. After 30 min of looking for the doctor we were lead into a room with a young boy and girl in white coats. They looked like they were in high school. The young man asked to see my paperwork and then informed me I would need to check myself into the hospital to run more test. I almost immediately burst out into tears! I would never want to be in this hospital. So our translator finally finds the real doctor. He isn’t wearing a white coat so we still aren’t convinced he was real. While the doctor is looking at our paperwork and talking to us, a random woman and her child find their way into the room where we were. The little girl climbs up on the desk and is jumping up and down and acting like a precious child and has a bad cough while the doctor is taking our temps and discussing medical treatments. So finally the treatment is decided on. We are off to the bush to ride out the fever for a few more days. Still don’t really know what was wrong with us. I think maybe Typhoid but God is really the only one who knows. Moral of the story – don’t get sick in Cambodia!!
