We are
a UK charity which provides healthcare education, training and clinical expertise to support our Khmer colleagues improve healthcare in Cambodia. We work in collaboration with medical director Dr Kak Seila and his team at the Battambang Provincial Referral Hospital and across the community in Battambang, Cambodia. All our directors and volunteers give their skills, time and pay for the privilege of helping a developing country like Cambodia to reskill and recover from the legacy left from the atrocities of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
About us
We’re a registered UK charity whose directors have a real passion for supporting and working with the Khmer people in a respectful way. We set up our charity in 2011 after a small team of staff from North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust first visited The Battambang Provincial Referral Hospital in Cambodia. The team was led by consultant in palliative care medicine Dr Edwin Pugh who was joined by director of nursing Sue Smith, medical director Dr David Emerton and chief executive Alan Foster. Over the years we like to think a good relationship has built up with our Battambang Khmer colleagues. There is a real feeling of friendship that Covid won't stop! The relationship has been mutually beneficial and we wish to grow together as partners.
What we do
We send teams (10-15 people) of primarily NHS staff to Cambodia throughout the year to deliver healthcare education and training, sharing our clinical expertise to support our Khmer colleagues improve healthcare in Cambodia. In fact there is usually much mutual learning! The charity has implemented multiple initiatives that have contributed to enhancement of care; for example use of peak flow meters, basic life support training, management of paediatric emergencies, dealing with alcoholic DTs, chronic disease management in diabetes and hypertension, child development,
occupational therapy rehabilitation, pharmacy control procedure and hand hygiene. We also facilitate (and pay) for some of our Khmer colleagues to come on an education trip to the UK each year.
Teesside university nursing opportunities
Teesside University’s former dean, Professor Paul Keane and senior lecturer Graham Jones were instrumental in forging collaborative links between the university’s school of health and social care (now the school of health and life science) and Transform Healthcare Cambodia. The charity was officially launched at Teesside University in June 2015. Graham took the first group of nursing students from Teesside University to Cambodia for their year two elective clinical placement in July 2016 and has taken a group of students to Cambodia every year since, until Covid-19 prevented the 2020 and 2021 trips from taking place. This collaboration has to date enabled 60 pre-registration nursing students, including students enrolled on the nursing and midwifery’s nursing associates' programme to undertake a clinical placement at Battambang Hospital Cambodia. This collaboration now has the full support of the university’s Student Future’s department thanks to the efforts of former head of Student Futures Norman Day and associate dean international Kevin Thomas. Please contact the Futures Department, Teesside University and Graham Jones for further information.
