Kevin

Spanning a year after the previous trip to Cambodia in June 2014 (exactly the time when SIGHT was known as GHTI instead), the whole hardware and software team, with new members, return to the country once again in June 2015, this time with two technologies introduced by SIGHT: electronic medical record system (EMRS), developed by software team, and drug dispensary box (DDX) by the hardware team. 

As usual, these products would be tailored to One-2-One, a New Zealand-based healthcare NGO that 
operates mobile clinics in the capital, Phnom Penh. Within approximately one week (8-16 June 2015), both teams in SIGHT toiled hard in ensuring that the products developed in this Spring semester be as user-friendly and easily accessible by the One-2-One staff as possible. It was really exciting to see, despite initial difficulties in adjusting to the new system and some unexpected ‘bugs’ discovered during site testing, the willingness by One-2-One, and especially the medical teams, in learning the new system, and getting adjusted to it.

But one greatest thing that has been observed is the dynamism of this country, especially the young generation. Once referred to as ‘Jewel of Southeast Asia’ in early 1960s, Cambodia had experienced one of the most devastating tragedies in the history of mankind in mid-1970s. Despite the tumultuous and shattering past, there remain big hopes for a brighter future from the young generation. Throughout the journey, both teams have met numerous inspiring and multi-talented individuals who, by utilizing their skills and expertise, are contributing not only to the betterment of their own self-qualities, but also the surrounding societies. These include the most dedicated members of One-2-One, who unswervingly serve slum communities with all the medical expertise that they have been trained before. 

It is true that the country continues to be beset by endemic problems, such as poverty, corruption, and lack of functioning infrastructure. But the real hope is in the young generation. A generation that is not only healthy, but also productive, hardworking, and well-equipped with multiple skills. Improving healthcare is one of the essential visions of One-2-One, and this is where SIGHT is willing to introduce affordable technologies to maximize the outcome.


One small step for Cambodia, it’s a huge leap of faith for SIGHT.

On the 25th of April, SIGHT organized a workshop for students from different high schools to share the spirit of community service on global health with sustainable technology, and invite them to be the first users of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) system developed by SIGHT student team.

The workshop started with a discussion on global health. The students shared their opinion on what is global health and the problems global health was facing. The students came up with several issues that many developing countries faced, such as the lack of sanitation, starvation and various other diseases such as HIV. Some groups even brought up that the lack of professionals such as doctors and programmers along with the unstable political system of such countries added towards the poor health condition in developing countries. 

Then we further zoomed in the problems that One-2-One, our NGO partner in Cambodia, face in their mobile clinic operation every day. In a game simulating the workflow of mobile clinic, the students got to experience the problems that arise from paper records, such as the difficulty of searching for a specific record in a large collection of records, and the maintenance of paper records in the tropical weather condition of Cambodia.

With an understanding of the problems, we introduced the EHR system, and the technology principles behind. We designed an interesting role play for the students to try the software for themselves. We were glad to see that the students were very engaged and interested in our system. And we really appreciate the valuable feedback, which will definitely help make the system better.

It has also been an amazingly special experience for us. "The most challenging part was probably teaching the students to use the software." Says Sandra, a software implementation team member, "We have been working with it for four months so all the functions are obvious to us. For this, we had to gain perspective and try to imagine we are seeing it for the first time. It was challenging but a great training before we do the same in Cambodia"  Another member, Lance, who is on the coding team comments "We know that the system will obviously better than paper record, but when I actually recorded the time needed for a patient to go through one station and saw that it is indeed better. It gave me a great sense of achievement".

The workshop has been a great success. We want to thank everyone who made it happen. 

The journey doesn't just end here. In Jun, we are going to Cambodia to implement the project, and be the first to see the impact of UST student design. Stay tune!

We organized a private session with Dr. Annie at which SIGHT members can invite our friends that share similar interest and ambition in serving the needy to have more intimate conversation with Dr. Annie. Dr. Annie is the chair and medical director of One2one charitable trust. She is also an inspirer—our motivator to persist through our project full-heartedly and to continue to serve the poor.

During the meeting, Dr. Annie kept reminding us that we—the ones sitting in the air-conditioned room—are among the top 15% of the world’s wealthy. She pointed out how well-blessed we are to have different choices of meal every day, decent clothes and live in a proper shelter while the remaining 85% is struggling to survive. Sadly, political corruption, poor distribution of resources and lack of medical and healthcare access are the main factors trapping many Cambodians in the cycle of poverty. Dr. Annie continued by showing us more pictures of the slums condition and the dwellers. These pictures very much represent the helplessness and hopelessness of those who hide in the shadow of every glorious city. Furthermore, she also suggested an insightful connotation to SIGHT—that we make effort to see the invisible and make them visible. 

Jisoo Lee













On the second day in Cambodia, we visited two slums, Canal Side slum and House Above the Water slum. Before visiting the slums, we first met the One2One team in their office. The office seemed somewhat small to fit many doctors, nurses, and volunteers, but all the team members seemed energetic nonetheless. I was especially inspired by Dr. Anne who was the director of the One2One team. Although it was the first time meeting her, she gave all of us a warm welcome and thanked us for coming to Cambodia to do good things. At this moment when I first met Dr. Anne, I could feel that she was going to be a great help throughout the entire trip in Cambodia.

As we got off our coach to walk to the Canal Side slum, I got a first glimpse of what a slum is like. I have never lived in an environment where transportation was unavailable, but in the slums in Cambodia, vehicles bigger than tuk-tuk could not go through the narrow and unpaved road to the entrance to the slum. This was one of the primary reasons that the medical team used the tuk-tuk to transport their people and luggage such as tables, chairs, and medical devices. Although it would be much more convenient for them to use a small coach to transport the people and luggage, the conditions of the slum and the high maintenance cost made them give up the idea of using such transportation. When we arrived at the first slum, I observed how the One2One team set up the nursing station. Because it was a nursing station but not a medical station, the setup was relatively simple, but setting up the canopy, which required a lot of man force and time, seemed to be a big problem. When the setup was finished, I had a chance to look around the slum and ask one of the slum residents some questions with the assistance of one One2One team member. The Canal Side slum seemed to be in a relatively good condition. The environment was not as bad as I had imagined, and there were even two public toilets that were kept quite clean. After taking a look around the slum, my group had to give a health demonstration on hand washing to the slum residents. There were so many uncertainties regarding this health promotion before coming to Cambodia, so I was worried at first, but it went quite successfully. There were more people than I had expected, the people were very much open to us and listened to what we were saying, and all of them stayed in good order. We had opportunities to interview the residents after the health promotion, which gave us valuable insight into the health situation in the slum.

In the second slum, House Above the Water slum, the medical team went instead of the nursing team. In contrast to the nursing team, the medical team had three stations, the triage, doctor, and the pharmacy. I observed how the pharmacy worked in this slum. It was interesting how pharmacist put a paper showing pictures of a rising sun, a sun high up in the sky, and a setting sun to indicate when the patient should take the medication. It was a consideration for most of the residents who were illiterate. Through this simple act, I could see how much effort the One2One team put into making the medical service more convenient for the residents.

Melody Chung

Besides observing the mobile clinic procedures and interviewing the slum dwellers during the slum visits, the SIGHT teams are also expected to conduct healthcare demonstrations to increase the residents’ awareness towards the importance of keeping hygienic and healthy habits. Our team Saturday was in charge of oral healthcare presentation in the slums. There were so much unknown and uncertainty during our preparation back in Hong Kong. We were unsure about the presentation-site condition and the audience background. I was also very worried about communicating with the locals—both medical team and slum dwellers—due to language, educational and cultural barriers.

Surprisingly, SIGHT team and one2one medical team quickly got along with each other. It was impressive that our team not only observed the mobile clinic operation flow without interfering but also actively offered helps to the medical team.  Moreover during the busy medical preparation for the slum visit, one of the medical team volunteers (Lyla) helpfully offered us some teaching material and the teeth model for our oral healthcare demonstration. Although the material was mostly in Khmer, we were so grateful for her help. Such collaboration reveals that in spite of different nationality and cultural background, we all share the same goals to serve the slum dwellers in every way we can.

The presentation-site condition was lower than our team’s expectation. Our healthcare demonstration was conducted under a tent that was installed temporarily on a narrow passage between the huts—which also serves as the main ‘street’ in the slum. The entire space was so warm, stuffy and crowded with chairs for the audience. We had to occasionally give way to the passing motorbikes during the demonstration. We also had many children running around the stage making noises, peeking into the gifts/welfares we had prepared for the audience. The situation became more chaotic and uncontrollable when more residents showed up and especially we were not able to directly communicate with them in Khmer. Although we had the demonstration flow well planned back in Hong Kong, the demonstration did not effectively involve the audience and convey the healthcare message.  I thought it was a failure.

Such stumble was incomparable with the daily challenges our audience has to struggle through in order to survive. The compassion for them turned our focus on the failures into driving force to put more effort in improving our demonstration to become more interactive and effective. From this experience, we learned that as the presenting team, we need to be flexible and sensible, be considerate to the slum dwellers and slow down our pace to ensure two way communications. Above all, it was impressive that our team collaborated well and was willing to persist through the challenges together.

Visiting the slum was definitely an eye-opening experience for me. I could never understand the slum dwellers’ hardships until I was physically there to observe and listen to them. These residents are trapped in the cycle of poverty. Their priorities are to eat and stay alive; living in a pest-free, clean and healthy environment will be of too high opportunity cost for them. Hence, there are little acts we can do as a team/individual to relieve the strains and bring significant change to their lives. For example, donating a water-filter system can definitely relieve the water crisis in a slum area.

Nonetheless, the problem for a technology-innovation team is: which is the most pressing, worth-solving need that we should tackle in such limited amount of resources in terms of time, funding, skills and knowledge? I really hope by the end of the course, we are able to show our partners a tangible prototype that solves the need and gives them hope.