Children's Surgical Centre Mission Statement

Luon Srey Touch receives the final check before leaving hospital. She is excited to be going back to school.

The CSC aims to improve the quality of life for disabled poor people by providing rehabilitation surgery and general rehabilitation programs. Integral to this mission is a program of training local surgeons and health workers, focusing on the development of sustainable health services for Cambodians.

Around 500 million, or 12% of the world's population suffer from disability. Disabilities bring misery, reduce economic status, destroy social integration and cause untold suffering through stigmatization and marginalization from society.

In the last 30 years international agencies have made great efforts to assist with health-care in developing countries focusing on the principles of 'primary health care'; e.g. sanitation, clean water, Maternal Child Health (MCH), developed at the conference of Alma Ata in 1978. Surgery has been considerably under-emphasized as 'too sophisticated and expensive' for widespread impact.

However, CSC's experience shows that:

• Safe, simple surgery is easy to organise, can be cheap (US$35-$200 per operation), and highly effective.
• The results of successful surgery are beneficial to the patient, gratifying to the surgeon, and the technology is practical.

  Surgery is a low-cost intervention that transforms lives.

• The costs are sustainable by all developing countries and are similar to the costs for medical treatment of chronic disease.
• Locally trained surgeons can easily learn how to do the procedures.