Children's Surgical Centre

The majority of physical disabilities can be improved or eliminated by relatively cheap procedures and techniques such as surgery and prosthetic devices. Unfortunately, surgical projects unjustly tend to inspire a negative reaction with donors who imagine large, expensive, non-sustainable, high tech units soaking up the limited health resources of a developing country, and performing complex operations for a limited elite. This is not the case at CSC where rehabilitative surgical procedures are cheap and sustainable and the material costs for surgery can be cost equivalent to the treatment of many infectious diseases (around US$420 per operation). The surgical techniques can be easily learned by local surgeons.

CSC aims to improve the quality of life for disabled poor people by providing free rehabilitation surgery. Integral to our mission is a program of training local surgeons and health workers, focusing on the development of sustainable health services.

At CSC, patients are divided into three types: eye patients, ENT patients, and rehab patients. They are divided into 3 separate areas where they are seen by doctors working in the ophthalmology department, ENT department, or the general rehabilitation department. All 3 departments work independently of each other, but combine to care for patients who need the services of more than 1 type of specialist. All staff are Khmer, with the exception of any expatriate Fellow or visiting expatriate volunteer surgeons, and medical students who might be present. International surgeons and other medical professionals provide training to local staff in order to ensure the skills of the local staff are steadily expanded.

Around 4,000 surgical procedures are performed per year at CSC, completely free of charge, and this number is increasing annually with a steady infusion of new procedures.

We work hard to provide free surgery and care for our patients, as they cannot afford medical care elsewhere. We believe that they have a right to a better quality of life, that will come from their improved health. We focused our specialties on the most necessary and overlooked types of care needed right now in Cambodia. Our specialties are orthopedic surgery, maxillofacial surgery, plastic surgery, ear-nose-and-throat (ENT) surgery, ophthalmic surgery, and anaesthesia. We also provide post-op care that include physiotherapy and speech therapy as well.

Since CSC's founding in 1998, when we started as a small project to help victims of landmine injuries, many of whom were children. Since then, CSC has grown into what it is today: a surgical centre that provides care to more than 20,000 patients a year. The number of patients each year has been steadily increasing, which we see as a good indicator that our services are still needed.

In 2017, we gave 25,318 patients consultations, and performed 4,018 operations - completely free of charge for our patients.