Humble Beginnings

Since Hospitals Beyond Boundaries (HBB) is now an officially recognized NGO under the Societies Act 1966, it is time for some serious groundwork. Currently, we are a team of six: Me, Hannan, Aizuddin, Sarah, Asmah and Izza. We are a mix of people from the medical, accountancy and business field. Ustaz Kausar from Cambodia is here in Malaysia so last night so we met up with him at my house to discuss plans to start things off. We have decided that our first project would be to build a hospital for the Muslim community in Phnom Penh.

  

Why Phnom Penh?

Initially the plan was to build a hospital in the remote areas of Cambodia, especially the Muslim villages of Kampong Cham and Kampong Chnnang. However, we have discussed that since this is our first project, it should be fairly achievable in a few years. As they say, ‘dream big, but start small’. My father had a friend who was trying to build a hospital in the rural areas of Sri Lanka, but his project was halted for years because of problems with biological waste disposal. Due to its remote location, there are no proper sites to dispose their wastes, and the transportation to the city where the incinerators are located is difficult. In the end they had to build their own incinerator to destroy the wastes, which delays the project further.

By building a hospital near the city of Phnom Penh, problems such as transportation and waste disposal should be readily taken care of because the city already has many hospitals, which means they must have proper system of waste disposal. The long term plan is to make this one in Phnom Penh a start and a learning curve to the management of hospitals in Cambodia. If things go really well and we are ready to extend into the more rural areas, the one here in Phnom Penh would be the centre of operations.

Why a hospital for the Muslim community?

The Muslim community is a minority and in Phnom Penh they mainly reside in the area called KM 7, KM 8 and KM 9. There already many hospitals in Phnom Penh but other than the government, they are run by the French, the Koreans and the Christian missionaries. The demands for a hospital built or managed by a Muslims is very high because of the problems they faced as stated in my previous post (link). Ustaz Kausar also has already established a network of kindergarten, primary and high schools in that area. Hence, at least they have the knowledge of how business works in that area. In terms of management, there are many Muslims around that area that are of the working class. Hence, finding human resources for the management and sustainability of the hospital should be easy.

Today I am going to meet up with 2 other potential members in Shah Alam to join me in this endeavour. We are still working out a website for our organization, so in the meantime, keep updated through my blog! ;)

Discussing some paperwork