Top Healthcare of Tribunal Suspects Upsetting for Some

Say Mony, Kong Sothanarith,VOA Khmer

Saturday, 09 September 2011

When Khmer Rouge prison survivor Vann Nath died earlier this week in a quiet Phnom Penh clinic, family members had been scrambling for cash to pay for his treatment.

Staff at the Khmer Rouge tribunal pooled $500 to offset costs, as Vann Nath lay in a coma after a heart attack Aug. 26. Friends scrambled to collect money online. He died on Monday.

Meanwhile, the former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of widespread atrocity crimes and responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million people are getting free health care with good doctors under the UN-backed tribunal. Vann Nath’s family members and other regime victims did not fail to notice.

Tuberculosis Continues To Kill Cambodians

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Friday, 27 March 2009

Laying in bed at the National Center for Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control, thin to the tendon, Sin Pich, 49, said she decided to go to the hospital after a cough that had persisted for around a year began producing.

She’d been at the center for two months, and she was getting weaker. Doctors say she’ll survive, but not all Cambodians are so lucky.

Health officials are facing a persistence of tuberculosis, which kills up to 35 Cambodians a day. That’s roughly the same number of people who died from the disease 5 years ago, according to USAID.