Hernia surgical mission to Hebron Medical Center, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Dates: 31st to 2nd September 2026
Host: Hebron Medical Center, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Hebron Medical Center (HMC) is a Christian, non-profit NGO hospital in Phnom Penh, founded in 2007 by Korean medical missionaries. It has grown from a small clinic into a hospital serving tens of thousands of patient visits annually, hosting numerous visiting surgical mission teams each year. Cambodia’s healthcare landscape is broadly split into private, NGO, and public providers. Free or subsidized care at public hospitals is generally limited to patients enrolled in the National Social Security Fund, which covers formally employed workers and, increasingly, self-employed individuals who register voluntarily, or to those who qualify for the Health Equity Fund, which covers very poor households. Patients outside these schemes — a significant share of the self-employed or unemployed population, must pay out of pocket regardless of whether they attend a public, private, or NGO facility.
Our team, comprising three surgeons, two anaesthetists, and one medical doctor, travelled to HMC for a hernia repair mission trip, originally planned for five days but condensed to three due to lower-than-expected patient recruitment, largely because many eligible patients had access to free hernia repair through government hospital, reducing demand for a paid NGO-hospital option. HMC’s operating theatres were in decent working condition and well stocked with disposable gowns, drapes, and sutures. We supplemented these with additional gowns, gloves, sutures, and hernia meshes brought from Hernia International. Throughout the whole mission, HMC has arranged adequate local support. In total, we treated four patients, aged between 35 and 77, comprising one bilateral and three unilateral inguinal hernia repairs, all performed via open mesh repair. All cases were performed under spinal anaesthesia, with no immediate intraoperative complications.
The first day was spent screening and examining patients who had been recruited in advance by HMC, supported by the hospital’s comprehensive pre-operative laboratory and imaging workup. Patients cleared for surgery were then admitted in preparation for procedure the next day as per HMC’s standard practice, to ensure fasting instructions and pre-operative preparation were properly followed and to minimize cancellations. On the second day, cases began at 9am with first incision at 9:30am, staggered across two operating theatres and concluding in the afternoon, with each case opening with a prayer led by a local team member. On the third and final day, we joined the surgical team’s morning rounds to review post-operative patients, all of whom were discharged in good condition with follow-up scheduled in two weeks.
This trip gave us a clearer, first-hand understanding of how Cambodia’s healthcare system operates in practice, particularly the gap faced by patients who fall outside the NSSF and Health Equity Fund safety nets. That understanding will help us better identify where the genuine need lies and tailor future mission efforts accordingly.
