Your Venerable Monks,
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen distinguished national and international guests,
Dear Students!
Today, I am pleased to attend the conferment of certificates to graduates and the inauguration of a new academic building at the technical school for medical care.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to highly evaluate the hard work and technical and spiritual support of the Ministry of Heath, the University of Health Science, the Technical School of Medical Care as well as all the development partners, which have actively contributed to the promotion of health status of Cambodian people and, in general, have accomplished many major achievements such as human resource training and building new academic buildings like the one in front of us today. In parallel, I would like to express my deep gratitude to national hospitals, institutes, pharmaceutical factories and enterprises in the Kingdom of Cambodia and other collaborators such as the French Cooperation, BEAT RICHNER foundation, Pierre FABREMerieux foundation, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Australia International Cooperation (AusAID), Germany International Cooperation (GIZ), Korean Community, non-governmental organizations and other donors for having actively involved with and contributed to the fruitful success of the University of Health Science. With all these achievements, I believe that all development partners and institutions will continue providing additional support for the enhancement and development of human resource capacity of health sector in Cambodia, aiming at steadily improving the welfare of our people.
Indeed, the development of human resource and physical infrastructure to support the development of all sectors are important and indispensible factors that need to be complemented each other, in short, we have to have both intangible and tangible infrastructures. Human resource that we have been working hard to develop is intangible infrastructure whereas academic buildings or treatment and medical care buildings are physical infrastructure that the Royal Government have given priority and great emphasis on and tried to implement, aiming at transforming these achievements into catalysts that contribute to the acceleration and positive development of Cambodia’s economy.
The view of the Royal Government is that the development of a country depends on the health and capability of the people. In this regard, the Royal Government has highly focused and tried hard in the enhancement of the people’s welfare by successful promulgation of policies, development programs and implementation of health system of the country based on adequate quantity and quality of human resources.
I am of the view that for the development of human resources we need to look at the macro-level, in general and micro-level in separate, at the national and sub-national levels, at general skills and specialties, thinking for both short-term and long-term. In this sense, the Royal Government has promulgated measures and programs aimed to produce quality human resources for fulfilling numerous and new needs at the present time and in the future. In the health education sector, the Royal Government has decided to use health academic and training institutions as sites of human resource development for health sector in the Kingdom of Cambodia, providing training at all levels and aspects in terms of research study, prevention, treatment and healthcare of our people.
Truly, human resource training in health sector needs to have some special features; it needs to be done thoroughly and comprehensively so that we can produce human resource that has the capability and morality in the prevention, treatment of and delivery of healthcare to patients in order improve the health of our people and contribute to the development our country. In fact, in order to reduce the rate of maternal and child mortality, and the rates of sickness and death that are caused by primary contagious diseases such as: AIDS, TB, malarias and other contagious diseases that can be prevented by vaccines, we need to have sufficient human resource for health sector in terms of quantity and quality. This requires universities to work hard to develop pillars of training with quality including professors with specialties and teaching pedagogy, and supporting teaching and appropriate learning infrastructure along with the budget for their operations.
Separately, as I usually have reminded that we must have intangible and tangible infrastructures such as school buildings. At the moment, we are inaugurating a new building for the development of human resource in health sector, which reflects the great effort of the University of Health Science. Indeed, this new achievement is the outcome of implementing my recommendation that “School Feeds School” which provide opportunity to and enable universities to generate their own revenues for their own developments. According to the report made by H.E Mam Bun Heng, the Minister of Health, it highlighted that since 2001 the University of Health Science was able to bolster infrastructure covered by its own fund to build a 5-story building in 2007 when I also attended the inauguration ceremony too. What we are celebrating today is the second building that is 7-story high, 54.30 meter long and 10.15 meter wide, costing a total of 6,995,798,400 Riel which is equivalent to around 1,748,949 US dollars, of the university fund. These confirmed that after turning itself into a public administrative institution the university was able to strengthen and expand its infrastructure, to increase allowances for officials as well as for professors to promote the development of human resource of quality and efficiency.
In this spirit, I am of the view that we must have the economic principles to convert agencies/institutions that is capable of generating revenues into revenue-making agencies/institution in order to fund their operations. With what we have achieved today, I have noted that since 7th January 1979 the University of Health Science has actively contributed to human resource development in health sector as urgently needed by the country in order to rehabilitate the health of Cambodian people after the Pol Pot regime. The university is now in the process of developing human resource in health sector at the basic and specialization level, as well as providing continuous training through regional workshops, national and international conferences aiming to disseminate knowledge to health personnel of all levels.
In order to develop health sector, particularly to promote the welfare of the people, I would like to make the following remarks:
First, In order to achieve objectives of Health Strategic Plan of the government, all higher educational institutions that provide training related to health science must strengthen and expand training capacity to provide human resource of professionalism and high competency to the Ministry of Health and the nation as a whole, which are very key foundation for poverty reduction of our people. In this spirit, I would like to urge and encourage the University of Health Science to make its continued effort to train our human resource and continue to cooperate with other national and international partners.
Second, all students should make use of your knowledge to serve our people with effectiveness and quality in order to join with the government to develop the country and alleviate poverty through providing medical care and treatment to the people with no discrimination, high morality and strictly adhere to the code of health professional practices.
Third, all students should work hard by continue researching and training because medical practitioners are considered as a lifelong learner and people who tries to find the best way to prevent, combat, cure and take care of fast changing types of disease.
Fourth, all people should pay high attention to available information on how to prevent, combat, cure and taking care of diseases through medias, educational institution and self-study.
Fifth, all factories, enterprises and other handicrafts must pay high attention to employees’ health condition by providing the knowledge and affordable supports for health services in their organizations. I strongly believe that these measures will largely contribute to the reduction in spending on health problems which will positively benefit the government and the people. Indeed, such implementation will be served as “health for all and all that for health” movement in health sector.
Sixth, medical doctors-paramedics are the person who is in direct contact with the people at hospitals, health centers and local communities. Therefore, I would like to suggest that you all have to strictly obey to a code of professional conducts because health service provision and life saving are not only highly respectful professionalism and morality, but also the greatest humanitarian act. In addition, medical doctors-paramedics have to help themselves, by using any means possible including the initiative to strengthen or establish an association – professional health association to communicate and cooperate with other national and international agencies/institutions, so that the development can be made successful.
Last, but not least, I would like, once again, to express my profound appreciations to Excellencies, Ladies, Gentlemen, doctors, professors, medical staffs and students as well as national and international donors, especially all health partners to contribute their financial, material and spiritual supports in the purpose to enhance human resource development in health sector, aiming at contributing to socio-economic development and poverty reduction of Cambodian citizens. I would like to highly appreciate all great efforts of the managements, civil servants, professors, lecturers and all staffs of the University of Health Science in your responsible tasks of training human resource in the medical field in theoretical and practical knowledge and good attitude consistent with professional codes of conduct to contribute to the development of health sector of our nation.
Finally, I would like to wish all Venerable Monks, Excellencies, Ladies, Gentlemen, national and international distinguished Guests and students with the four gens of Buddhist blessing: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength. May I now officially inaugurate this new building!
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