Although the political situation seems to have stabilized after the unrest of the late 1990s, reforms and transparency in the administration are still badly needed. In Cambodia for ten years, MSF works closely with the Ministry of Health in the districts of Stung, Sotnikum, Bakan, Stung Treng and Thmar Pouk. In the provincial prison of Banteay Meanchey in Sisophon, MSF has set up a basic health care system. At the hospital in Sotnikum, an innovative pilot program contracts employees to make them accountable for their work and the hospital's performance, all to encourage a decentralized system of management.
Training is essential in a society that has seen a whole generation of health workers wiped out.
In Phnom Penh, the capital, MSF runs a basic surgery training program for doctors and nurses working in district health centers which have operating facilities. After ten years, a laboratory technician training program in the city recently closed. In the Norodom Sihanouk hospital in Phnom Penh, MSF runs a 60-bed ward for AIDS patients, which functions as a national referral center. MSF plans to introduce antiretroviral drugs for those patients in the year 2001. An HIV consultation service is in place in the provincial hospital of Battambang.