In its efforts to strengthen the medical infrastructure in rural Cambodia, Side by Side International (SBSI) partnered with others to target the neediest areas of the country for maximum impact of these services.

Sihanoukville Province Medical Clinic

A medical center has been completed along National Road 4, a heavily trafficked connector between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, the country’s main port city and growing tourist destination.

Unfortunately, fatal car accidents rank as the second highest cause of deaths in Cambodia, which holds the ominous record of having the most traffic accidents of any nation in Southeast Asia.

Thus the pertinent placement of this medical facility on this major artery has a major impact in saving lives. The heavily traveled National Road 4 is infamously linked to numerous traffic accidents, all the more a problem in that there have been no hospitals with proper facilities nearby, and no public ambulance system, which we are now thankfully able to provide.

Accident victims can also be transported to the National Calmette Hospital by Graphis ambulances that are stationed at our Graphis Health Center. So this medical facility is strategically situated to dispatch ambulances to the site of road accidents allowing immediate paramedic assistance en route to the medical clinic and/or to a hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh, depending on seriousness of the injuries.

The designer of this facility has created an amazing eco-friendly, state-of-the-art medical center that incorporates all forms of renewable energy, coupled with high-tech organic agriculture that will provide food, rice and fish for the patients and local residents.

 The design technology provides an air conditioning-like effect for the entire medical building, while also preventing the entry of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The eventual plan will be to build a teaching university adjacent to the Medical Center, where students from other Asian countries could come and study the model, to be replicated elsewhere.

Family Care Foundation contributed the solar electricity generating system for the Medical Center necessary to run the equipment.

This facility and ambulances are linked into the Emergency Response Program in Phnom Penh as part of a greater strategic plan to extend the network throughout all the various transportation arteries of the country. Previously, the only communications between Phnom Penh and the area was by mobile telephone. 

Soon they hope to have the GPS system set up in at least 5 ambulances covering National Road 4. It’s just a matter of erecting another 30 meter antenna along the way. (National Road 3 heading north to Siem Reap is next targeted to be added to the network.)

Other Japanese organizations partnering with Side by Side International include the student association "Graphis" and the “Nurses Overseas” organization who are presently providing medical services to local residents, including treating malaria patients.