Singaporean clinic MW Medical has been operating in Cambodia since last year and it aims to provide internationally-recognised healthcare services to people living in the Kingdom.

Dr Madeleine Chew, the Managing Director of MW Medical, said: “Our goal is to provide patients with reliable healthcare services with our professional medical practitioners and mobile doctors in Phnom Penh – we provide 24-hour services.”

If patients need to have their health checked at hotels, in their houses, at the business offices or in government offices because they are too busy to come to the clinic, the MW Medical clinic will send doctors to check and provide them healthcare, she said.

Since its operations started, the MW Medical clinic has drawn a lot of customers.

“Previously, some patients have flown to Singapore for medical services, but now they come to our clinic instead,” Dr Chew said, adding that the clinic has about 250 permanent clients per month – who regularly have their health checked at the clinic.

About 50 per cent are locals and the rest are foreigners.

Dr Chew said their clients stem from children to adults and most of the adults are businesspeople.

“If they come here and we find some diseases that are very complicated, we ask and arrange for them to go Singapore for more testing and checking for specific types of diseases,” Dr Chew said.

She said the clinic’s head-office is based in the Marina Bay Hotel complex building. It has been established in Singapore for many years and has experienced professional practitioners and mobile doctors.

Dr Chew said MW Medical in Cambodia has been operating since January 2012 in partnership with the Himawari Hotel Phnom Penh. A shareholder of the hotel, Andrew Tay, was the initiator for the establishment of the clinic in Cambodia.

She said the fees for a check-up and treatment at the clinic are reasonably priced if compared with local clinics in Phnom Penh.

MW Medical Cambodia is the only Singapore-standardised clinic operating in Cambodia.

As a member of ASEAN, the Cambodian people have seen more than their share of health problems, and medical care is one area that needs to be improved to help people in their daily lives.

Dr Chew said: “Actually, healthcare in Cambodia should be focused in general because I see many doctors sent overseas for studying specific issues, but they should spend more on general practitioners rather than specific problems.

“Here, there are many people who need to be taken care of: for children, they face malnutrition and other diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and hepatitis.

“These diseases do not cost a lot of money to treat, but they need help from doctors and medicine.

“The other way is pharmacies are needed to follow the prescriptions from doctors; it’s not the same as the current practice that every pharmacy can provide medicine to patients without a doctor’s instruction.”