What were the chances?

*

What were the chances? There were his old neighbours from back home sitting out front of a restaurant on the Riverfront in Pnom Penh, yacking garrulously, as seemed entirely fitting, as they always seemed to do, with the tourists at the neighbouring table. He struggled to stay sober; and there he was, that familiar face from the local. David. Was it? A lawyer. Always up for a chat. His girlfriend. They seemed to suit each other; although there he was, entirely trapped. She wasn't letting him out of her sight. Couldn't go off and have a shower or whatever while they had a beer and a game of pool. But that was it, the clinging essence. He watched the backpackers walking past in the chaos; it was like Asia used to be like 40 years ago.

Until modernity swept the land and the region; and money poured in from everywhere; and an industrious people embraced everything about the modern world; the world the West had assumed for no good reason was its own. Before Pol Pot wiped out a generation and threw the country back in time. The elephant walked the Riverfront; the story going it was the only elephant in Pnom Penh, the only one, being small and able to be hidden during the seventies, and therefore the only one to survive the murderous regime. All the rest were worked to death. They smile but they keep on coming. The traffic is chaotic.

Check your guns at the door. Don't cross anyone in a Gold or Black Lexus, the saying goes, the driver will be doubling as a guard, and carrying a gun. This was a different world and a different place. He could feel the shammozzle eating its way through his heart. He could see time stand still and fold in upon itself. He could see the vast awakening and yet here was a different path. He was shadowed into non-existence. He worked his way through the dark reaches. He came across everything and he came across nothing. The mosquitoes here are fierce; he said, batting away the annoying insects. Peter Garrett is finally going under; his arrogance and contempt for normal procedure and for other people finally coming home to roost.

If you had held every trendy idea in history; if you had bemoaned the fates of all the right groupings and held all the correct views to slot in with the chattering class, then he could be free. He could wake up and yell: this is it. We are going out. We are born again. Raise a glass. Great to see you. What are the chances? Over the pool table they exchanged astonished glances, what are we doing playing pool in Pnom Penh with this dude from home? And yet here they were, in this piece of the Western world, being comfortably fleeced but even more comfortably entertained. And all was well. Until he picked up that first drink.

Shadows flicked across the land like a sad gasp. In the morning the sky coloured early and the palm fronds made out against the sky. Everything was lost and yet everything was gained. Finally they left, back to their hotel, a cheappie on the Riverfront full of young backpackers. The boys were so fresh faced. The girls such princesses. They weren't going to let him go; not their man, not in his bloom of youth. He remained silent; just watched. The circuit was never ending. Shadows danced, mosquitoes buzzed, the tuk tuk drivers jostled each other and the handsome security guard lounged at the front; ever ready to perform one service or another, smiling all the way; these big, handsome, uniformed men. Even now, at sunrise, a swarm of mosquitoes bats against the window, drawn by the light. He remained frozen in the time that was all time, and smiled ruthfully as he negotiated his way home; determined not to be robbed.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010021532041/National-news/ministry-confirms-cases-of-cholera.html

THE Ministry of Health has reported that more than 100 Cambodians have tested positive for cholera since November, reversing its initial refusal to confirm the presence of the disease and simultaneously defending its handling of the outbreak.

Speaking at a joint press conference held with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday, Minister of Health Mam Bunheng said there had been 128 confirmed cholera cases and one death. About 65 percent of the cases involved children under the age of 15, and the single recorded fatality was an 82-year-old man from Takeo province who died after contracting cholera in January, he said.

Dr Nima Asgari, a public health official at the WHO, on Sunday noted that the nation has only four hospitals, all in Phnom Penh, with the correct laboratory facilities required to test for cholera, adding that it would be “almost impossible to estimate the actual number of cases of cholera” nationwide.

Prior to Friday, ministry officials had not released any information about cholera cases, drawing criticism from officials at Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh, who said they had been forwarding information on cases of cholera to the government since mid-November.

Though doctors at the hospital last week accused the government of not doing enough to publicise the outbreak, Mam Bunheng said his ministry had tried to balance the need to be forthcoming and the need to avoid sowing “panic”.

“We have not hidden any cases,” he said, pointing out that cholera cases had been reported in “three or four” Khmer-language newspapers. He said the ministry had refrained from making more publicising information about the cases so as to avoid encouraging people to seek unnecessary treatment and potentially overwhelm medical facilities.

“We may cause panic among people, and they will rush to hospitals to get treated,” he said.

He said the ministry had taken immediate action after the first case was confirmed, visiting provinces in which potential cases had been reported to educate residents about the importance of frequent hand-washing, covering toilets and boiling drinking water. He also said the ministry had distributed oral rehydration salts, intravenous fluids and chlorine for disinfecting water.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/03/2834814.htm

D-Day for Rudd's hospitals overhaul

By Samantha Hawley

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will today unveil his plan to fix Australian hospitals, an announcement that could mark the biggest change to healthcare since the introduction of Medicare in the 1970s.

Mr Rudd has previously outlined his desire to take control of funding from the states and territories, establish a national funding pool and pay hospitals on a per-patient basis.

With the states and territories against the move, he is likely to threaten to remove GST if the premiers and chief ministers do not get on board.

Western Australian Liberal Treasurer Troy Buswell says the opposition is hardly surprising.

"We've seen a Commonwealth Government who couldn't even get roof batts into people's ceiling spaces and they want us to trust their kids and our parents in a hospital system that they run," he said.

"How would it be having someone like [Environment Minister] Peter Garrett being in charge of your mum when she goes to hospital?"

Mr Rudd will also face protests from the Labor state governments as well Victorian Premier John Brumby, who was the first to publicly criticise the plan.

But the decision to overhaul the system is backed by Neil Blewett, who was health minister during the Hawke years and who oversaw the introduction of Medicare.

"It is the most fundamental change since the introduction of Medicare because it transforms hospital funding," he said.

Dr Blewett says he has long argued for a single hospital funding pool and the payment to hospitals on a per-patient basis.

"It removes what is one of the great weaknesses of the system. That is the buck-passing between the states and the Commonwealth," he said.

With the announcement coming very close to the next election, Dr Blewett says the Government has a very short time to win over the states.