Your Excellency Professor Eng Hout, Secretary of State, Ministry of Health,
Your Excellency Dr Hok Kim Cheng, Director-General for Health, Ministry of Health,
Respectful Directors from the Ministry of Health, and the provinces,
Colleagues,
ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning!
On behalf of the World Health Organization, I am very pleased to be here today with you for this important and timely workshop on “Hospital Preparedness for Outbreaks and Emergencies”.
I would like to express my sincere thanks and congratulations to the Ministry of Health for the excellent leadership and very timely actions on preparing for a good response to outbreaks and emergencies like dengue and flooding.
As new WHO Representative to Cambodia, I have learned that this is a special week for the people of Cambodia because of “Pchum Ben”. However, you all are here in this room to work hard to save lives, promote health and make Cambodia safer through preparedness efforts for emergency response.
I truly admire the strong commitment and the hard work by the Provincial Health Departments and Provincial Hospitals on providing the best possible quality of services to the people despite all the challenges and difficulties that you have been facing, including limited human and financial resources.
Thanks to the Ministry of Health, I recently had an opportunity to travel to one of the flooding affected provinces. I was deeply touched by the visit I paid to Stung Treng Provincial Hospital and Provincial Health Department and by the hard work of the staff on providing lifesaving and other health services even though the hospital was surrounded by water.
Why do we need this workshop and why we are doing now with a sense of urgency? Allow me to share with you the three important aspects.
Firstly, emergencies are real, inevitable. Outbreaks and emergencies will continue to occur, even become more complex in the future. We need to prepare today for a good response tomorrow to save lives, protect health and serve the people.
The impact of emergencies on health and on our societies has been increasing. Large scale outbreaks and heath emergencies may revert our progress towards Cambodia sustainable development goals or CSDGs.
Emergencies may also become more complex for us to manage in the future due to the rapidly changing context, including climate change.
Fortunately, Cambodia was less prone to disasters as compared to many other countries in the WHO Western Pacific Region. However, Cambodia is not immune to outbreaks and emergencies as we see in dengue and floods this year. We must be prepared in our response in order to mitigate the impact.
Secondly, healthcare facilities especially hospitals play a crucial role in national and local responses to outbreaks and emergencies.
It is important for us to ensure health services will continue to be provided when they are most needed at times of crises. Needs for health services during emergencies are often increasing, and our service delivery environment is often more challenging.
Luckily, we do have knowledge and tools to help us prepare for a good response. This includes hospital contingency planning.
Thirdly, no single agency or department can do it alone. We are stronger only when we are together towards the same goal.
Health emergency preparedness and response require inter-departmental and intersectoral collective and coordinated efforts, so we maximize our comparative advantages.
The health sector is an essential part of the national and local disaster management system. We would need to place health at the centre of disaster preparedness and response. The Ministry of Health is expected to coordinate all the heath responses to outbreaks and emergencies. WHO is mandated and ready to support the Ministry of Health in this important coordination role, when needed.
It is also important to ensure that surge capacity is in place. This includes national emergency medical team development and arrangement. A country-wide system needs to be in place to request and receive an international support when needed, including through the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network and international emergency medical teams or known as EMTs.
I am very pleased to see such inter-departmental and multisectoral collaboration and coordination in emergency preparedness and response is ongoing in Cambodia.
WHO is fully committed to supporting the Ministry of Health in preparing for and responding to outbreaks and emergencies.
I wish you all very fruitful discussions. I am confident that you will achieve the meaningful outcomes of the workshop.
Thank you.