The Lake Clinic provides health care to nine of the numerous floating villages across the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. Each year we provide outpatient care to the more 10,000 villagers who live year-round on the lake in their floating homes. To serve this community, TLC has four clinics on the lake and one more on the Stung Sen River. TLC also maintains a small fleet of boats to travel from port to clinics. These clinics are in their tenth year of operation and need a bit of rehabilitation.
100,000 people live in floating villages across the Tonle Sap. TLC works with some of the most remote of these. The closest village is 30km from its port and the furthest is 100km. The clinics have served these communities well, but they suffer from the damages caused by time, weather, and water. The work of repairing and sealing the steel hulls has already been done, but they still need some more tender loving care of their own so that TLC can carry on with the work of serving the underserved.
Our clinics are simple structures and built for practical use, but there are small improvements that will add greatly to the comfort of both patients and the staff. For now, we need to: Extend the roof in front and in the back of each clinic to protect the waiting area and the cook from rain and sun; Set up rain curtains to protect from the monsoons' horizontal rain; Replace the thatch currently used at the roof with plexiglass that will let more light into the clinic and keep wildlife out.
This project seeks to change the nature of health care on the lake through our "Healthy Communities" initiative that includes: outpatient care for the entire family; antenatal and postnatal care; homecare for the elderly and handicapped; health education; mental health outreach; disease surveillance; clean water and hygiene for households; food security, and proper medical referrals with support when we must look to hospitals for additional care. TLC's mission is to ensure free healthcare.
