Appendectomy in Cambodia

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daeum_tnaot
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Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by daeum_tnaot »

My wife's family are in a flurry as her father seems to have appendicitis (the disease that he supposedly has is 'prawveean dawh knaing'). He lives in one of the provinces, and his son is going to drive out there to meet him. He should be having an operation in one of the provincial hospitals. My wife's brother is ready to sell his moto to save his father, but it seems to me this should not be a major operation with massive costs. Especially considering that the father has an ID Poor card.

Does anyone have any idea of the cost of an appendectomy in Cambodia? At a state hospital? Would he be better off coming to Phnom Penh for help?

Thank you in advance for your help.
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Pedrazo
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by Pedrazo »

daeum_tnaot wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 9:40 pm My wife's family are in a flurry as her father seems to have appendicitis (the disease that he supposedly has is 'prawveean dawh knaing'). He lives in one of the provinces, and his son is going to drive out there to meet him. He should be having an operation in one of the provincial hospitals. My wife's brother is ready to sell his moto to save his father, but it seems to me this should not be a major operation with massive costs. Especially considering that the father has an ID Poor card.

Does anyone have any idea of the cost of an appendectomy in Cambodia? At a state hospital? Would he be better off coming to Phnom Penh for help?

Thank you in advance for your help.
It might be worth getting a quick second opinion. Appendicitis is often misdiagnosed and it tends to strike teenagers and young people in their early 20's.
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by Anchor Moy »

Get him into a taxi right now for PP. Or Siem Reap if it's closer. I have had to do this from Kampong Cham a few years ago. We got a taxi to Calmette and they whipped my friend straight into the operating block. Doctors were very pro and French-trained.
Time is of essence. The longer you wait, the worse it will be IF it is appendicitis. We weren't sure either, but if we had not gone straight to hospital my friend would be dead. They will do the op with local anaethetic if there is not much money (I wouldn't, but apparently that is done.) I don't want to be scary, but just tell your family to take the patient to the biggest and closest centre with a proper hospital. I don't know where they are, so cannot advise, but tell them it is urgent that he gets to a hospital ASAP or he may die from peritonitis.
Best wishes

BTW, my friend was over 50yo when he got appendicitis.
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by newkidontheblock »

Appendicitis is usually much worse in the elderly.

In a western country, an Interventional Radiology placed T-tube will buy time for infection to cool down.

However, he isn’t in a Western Country.

Second the above poster. Get to Phnom Penh and into a good hospital.

Good luck.
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by daeum_tnaot »

Thanks for all your advice. We don’t know for sure if it is appendicitis. Now we found out he is only in the district town, not even the provincial town. So I think the best thing is for him to go to the provincial town. My wife’s brother is going there now.
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

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Anchor Moy wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:52 pm Get him into a taxi right now for PP. Or Siem Reap if it's closer. I have had to do this from Kampong Cham a few years ago. We got a taxi to Calmette and they whipped my friend straight into the operating block. Doctors were very pro and French-trained.
Time is of essence. The longer you wait, the worse it will be IF it is appendicitis. We weren't sure either, but if we had not gone straight to hospital my friend would be dead. They will do the op with local anaethetic if there is not much money (I wouldn't, but apparently that is done.) I don't want to be scary, but just tell your family to take the patient to the biggest and closest centre with a proper hospital. I don't know where they are, so cannot advise, but tell them it is urgent that he gets to a hospital ASAP or he may die from peritonitis.
Best wishes

BTW, my friend was over 50yo when he got appendicitis.
I second that a similar thing happened to my friend, she was immediately rushed to Calmette and they operated on her immediately. Here's copy of the original post:
Kuroneko wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 10:03 am
Anchor Moy wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:52 pm All I can say is that when we arrived at Calmette Hospital with an emergency apendicitis/ complication with peritonitis/ it was dealt with very professionally by the medical team, and the surgeons had done their training in French hospitals.
Calmette gets a lot of criticism, but I cannot fault them for the emergency procedure that saved a life in this case. It was weird because the doctors and surgeons were at international level, but the rest of the staff were totally TIC.
Sorry, I can't give you specific info on hernia operations, but I can tell you that they do have some good surgeons at Calmette. IME.
Agree, a Khmer friend of mine was admitted to Calmette for an emergency appendicitis with complications in May last year. After the operation she stayed in the hospital for one week. The total cost was about $300.

Just looked up the old post:
Kuroneko wrote: Fri May 01, 2020 10:33 am
I personally use Central Hospital and have witnessed their surgery as well as other procedures which are all of good standard. http://www.central-hospital.com/ch/aboutus

Calmette hospital which often gets a bad press from some expats produces good results. While I have had little to do with that hospital over a number of years, as an example a friend was recently referred there with an acute appendicitis resulting in Volvulus (twisting of the colon) which was dealt with promptly and effectively.
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by daeum_tnaot »

My wife's brother arrived and now the doctor is saying for him to be under observation for a day or two. It seems that they are saying he doesn't need to be operated on. It seems strange that if he really needed an appendectomy, others have made it sound like it is an emergency. It's not really clear what to do but it seems like if this district hospital releases him maybe we should get a second opinion.
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

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daeum_tnaot wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 12:16 am My wife's brother arrived and now the doctor is saying for him to be under observation for a day or two. It seems that they are saying he doesn't need to be operated on. It seems strange that if he really needed an appendectomy, others have made it sound like it is an emergency. It's not really clear what to do but it seems like if this district hospital releases him maybe we should get a second opinion.
Have they decided if it's appendicitis or not? If so, time is almost certainly of the essence. If he waits too late it could burst, and then he's got all sorts of crap released into his body, then he'll likely go septic, and go into septic shock. [I'm not a doctor, this is just my understanding.] Maybe it's just inflamed/infected, and they don't think it will actually burst. It's always more risky to operate when there's a live infection, and I think they now only do an appendectomy if they think it's really about to burst. I assume they've put him on strong antibiotics?

My family member had it and it ended up bursting. I believe they decided not to even operate at that stage, just pumped them with a bunch of antibiotics for a couple of days in the hospital. Then scheduled an operation a month or two later, when it was less risky to operate.

I had mine taken out. Was hardly in any pain, but because of the location of the pain, I went in to get checked, just in case. They had a look and immediately prepped me for surgery (fuck you, Taco Bell).
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newkidontheblock
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by newkidontheblock »

Missus had it done as part of a GYN issue. Under spinal. Neuraxial can be done, as long the procedure isn’t laparoscopic. Not ideal, but can be done.

Good luck!
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Re: Appendectomy in Cambodia

Post by daeum_tnaot »

General Mackevili wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 12:31 am
daeum_tnaot wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 12:16 am My wife's brother arrived and now the doctor is saying for him to be under observation for a day or two. It seems that they are saying he doesn't need to be operated on. It seems strange that if he really needed an appendectomy, others have made it sound like it is an emergency. It's not really clear what to do but it seems like if this district hospital releases him maybe we should get a second opinion.
Have they decided if it's appendicitis or not? If so, time is almost certainly of the essence. If he waits too late it could burst, and then he's got all sorts of crap released into his body, then he'll likely go septic, and go into septic shock. [I'm not a doctor, this is just my understanding.] Maybe it's just inflamed/infected, and they don't think it will actually burst. It's always more risky to operate when there's a live infection, and I think they now only do an appendectomy if they think it's really about to burst. I assume they've put him on strong antibiotics?

My family member had it and it ended up bursting. I believe they decided not to even operate at that stage, just pumped them with a bunch of antibiotics for a couple of days in the hospital. Then scheduled an operation a month or two later, when it was less risky to operate.

I had mine taken out. Was hardly in any pain, but because of the location of the pain, I went in to get checked, just in case. They had a look and immediately prepped me for surgery (fuck you, Taco Bell).
Somehow wife's brother got the district hospital to release him and then they took him to the Provincial Hospital. The doctor at the province seemed surprised that they didn't do the operation and said that he should be operated on. We saw a photo of the doctor's diagnosis and it said something like appendicit (poor handwriting and in French)

Supposedly he is being operated on right now, so I think that's a good result. It's probably better to get it out of the way and IIRC the appendix has no real purpose.
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