A health clinic without a bathroom? Not anymore.

Two years ago, the health center in Chroy Sdao Commune in western Cambodia was in a state of disrepair. Perhaps the most alarming fact was that there wasn’t a functioning toilet – at a health clinic!

Even while up against these odds, the clinic staff were still intent on providing basic care and services for people in four villages – nearly 12,000 people! Like in any community, people here had a diverse set of health care issues and needs. Clinic staff were seeing between 20 and 30 patients each day for services ranging from prenatal checkups, delivering babies and post-natal care to vaccinations to treating malnutrition and tuberculosis.

Many patients and their families spent long hours at the clinic, which of course means they needed to use a bathroom during their visit. And given that it was a health center, urine and stool samples were also part of caring for patients.

CWS partner Rural Development Association began a partnership with the health center in 2016. This partnership was aimed at fostering much-needed nutrition, health and hygiene education. Having a safe, sanitary toilet was an obvious supporting activity to further ensure the success of this partnership.

Once RDA alerted our team to the situation, CWS provided funding for the clinic to repair a two-room sanitary latrine. This was just one of the many latrines built or repaired as part of CWS programs in this commune; in addition to this two-room latrine and a similar one built at a nearby primary school, 31 families received support to build sanitary latrines for their homes.

Our team recently visited the clinic for a follow up visit. The center director, Ith Vuth, told us, “Before it was difficult for patients – especially women, people with disabilities and the elderly – who came for services, only to find we didn’t have a latrine. They needed to go a nearby home for this.”

Now, thanks to a relatively small investment, things have changed for the better. This is thanks, in no small part, to the generosity of those who support CWS so we can help vulnerable families and communities around the world as they work to improve their own lives.

One grateful Cambodian patient is Chanthou, who now visits the health center for prenatal treatment for her third pregnancy. She told us, “I am so happy that there is a latrine for patients. Now we have privacy, unlike before when, for a urine test sample, we had to go outside the clinic and ask a neighboring family with a latrine at their house to use it. Or, sometimes, we had to use an open outdoor space! In the past, I felt such shame in this that I sometimes didn’t come for my check-ups. But now I come regularly to my appointments, and I notice that many others are doing the same as me.”