The Pulmonary Ward of the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital (KSFH) in Phnom Penh is the major public inpatient facility for patients with TB and other lung diseases in Cambodia. Many of the patients on the ward also have HIV. Since mid-2004, with the support of the United States National Institutes of Health CIPRA program and private donations, the CHC has been working with the staff members of the KSFH to improve the quality of care for patients on the 120-bed ward.
As a result of this effort, in just a few short years the CHC and the KSFH staff have transformed what was a non-functional ward in the largest public hospital of Phnom Penh into a center of excellence for TB and AIDS care. Substantial renovations supported by the NIH and the Japanese Embassy Grass Roots Fund have transformed the ward from a dismal place where impoverished patients came to die, into a facility where they receive excellent care. Today, the CHC Pulmonary Ward Program assists approximately 1200 patients a year, and the ward has become a referral center for patents from satellite locations all over the country. The pulmonary ward is serving as the major referral site for the CAMELIA clinical trial. Over 800 patients with AIDS and a pulmonary infection are followed on an outpatient basis by pulmonary ward physicians in the Infectious Disease Ward of the KFSH in partnership with MSF-France.
The KSFH is now a major teaching site for doctors and nurses in Phnom Penh for TB and AIDS care. This has been accomplished through CHC-run training activities for medical students, doctors and nurses, on-site management, provision of drugs and equipment, refurbishment of the ward itself, the establishment of appropriate compensation of nurses and doctors, and the institution of a counseling and social work staff.
In 2006, CHC implemented a HIV-Voluntary Counseling Center service within the new outpatient department, and achieved the goal of providing all TB patients on the ward with the opportunity to have HIV testing and counseling.