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Dr. Agarwal's Eye Hospital opens in Cambodia
Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Yim Chhay Ly, inaugurated the newest Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital in the capital city of Phnom Penh in September.
“We now have approximately 60 hospitals globally, including 11 in Africa and 40-plus in India. Now, for the first time, we have opened in Far East Asia in Cambodia,” Amar Agarwal, MS, FRCS, FRCOphth, chairman and managing director, and OSN APAO Edition Board Member, told Ocular Surgery News. “What we are trying to do is create a global group of eye hospitals to deliver high quality eye care.”
Yim Chhay Ly and Amar Agarwal
The large, four-story hospital building will provide LASIK, cataract surgery, keratoplasty and more to Cambodia and its neighboring countries, including Vietnam. This will be the first time LASIK has been available in Cambodia, according to Agarwal.
Those practicing at the new hospital were brought to India, trained by Agarwal himself and are now able to perform the latest surgery techniques, he said. The facility will also act as a training center.
“Dr. Kong Piseth, a leading ophthalmologist in Cambodia with whom Dr. Agarwal Eye Hospital has partnered, is an excellent surgeon who can perform glued IOL and other surgeries. With time, we are looking at conducting skill transfer, where we’ll be able to transfer our skills to the local populations of doctors so that eye care expands in a bigger and faster way,” Agarwal said.
Future goals include an anticipated expansion into 20 additional countries within 3 to 4 years, according to Agarwal.
“The biggest challenge in this exponential growth is the manpower to train doctors, or to acquire excellent doctors who can deliver the challenge,” Agarwal said.
In addition to the new Cambodia facility, which opened Sept. 1, Agarwal’s group currently has several locations in India, as well as in Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Zambia, Nigeria, Madagascar and Rwanda. — by Samantha Costa