W AR victims are filling the rancid, fly-blown wards and hallways of the Military
hospital in Phnom Penh.
The lucky ones have family to dress their wounds and bathe them in the toilet
block or from water drums outside.
Most of the patients are amputees, or soon will be. Most still wear their
soldier's uniform.
Hospital director Kao Try said there were 714 injured soldiers in the 500-bed
hospital, 60 or 70 per cent of them amputees. The numbers had risen sharply over
the last few weeks. On average, one out of every hundred will die under the
knife.
The wounded were in the capital because the provincial hospitals lacked staff
and supplies, he said.
Their stories pinpoint the current "hot-spots" more
thoroughly than any governmental briefing: Preah Vihear, Battambang, Anlong
Veng, Kulen, Siem Reap.
Som Sary, 32, was ordered to Preah Vihear with 150 comrades from Stung Treng
in December. On Feb. 12 he was asked to head a demining team - with no hi-tech
equipment, just bamboo "feeling" rods - after his company had been cut off. He
lost his right leg that same day.
"It is a very bad situation," he said of Preah Vihear. "There are many mines,
so many mines. Many soldiers don't want to fight. Some have run away."
Sary described an area saturated by mines and crude but effective body traps,
with KP making quick, demoralizing attacks after mines had been detonated. "Many
soldiers have had accidents with mines."
Seng Sok, 28, lay on the hallway,
his right leg missing to the knee from a mine in Som Rorng district, Siem
Reap.
He said the Khmer Rouge strategy was to divide into small hit-and-run groups.
New mines and booby traps were prevalent.
"Sometimes, we fight three or four times a day against the KR. I know it is
very dangerous but I have no excuse because it is my duty."
Sok said he was transported by helicopter to the Phnom Penh because the
provincial hospital had no medicines, but he was being treated poorly in the
Phnom Penh hospital.
"I haven't got any bottles of serum. They said I am still strong enough, that
I don't need serum or vitamin."
But he smiled when he said there was enough hospital food, which was
different from the battlefield.
Dr Try said there was no bilateral or NGO
assistance for the military hospital.
The hospital only had antibiotics and bandages, but very few anti-malarial
medicines.
One soldier gave the Post a letter saying that some hospital staff asked for
money.
Dr Try said that he had never asked a soldier to pay money. "I don't think
our staff asked any patients for money. If I found out, I would free them from
their jobs immediately."
Try told the Post that Price Norodom Ranariddh has pledge $1 million from the
military budget to equip the hospital with modern equipment and techniques.
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