[Unofficial Translation]
Congratulation to 3,986 Graduates
I am so pleased to preside over this graduation and diploma presenting ceremony of 3,986 graduates of the Health Sciences University. I am here with you for this auspicious event and I will be hurry to the airport to take a flight to China for the ASEAN-China Expo event. Today, the National Assembly also convened urgent meeting to resolve an urgent matter regarding act of treason that we discovered recently. The National Assembly will decide for upcoming legal procedures.
To fulfill this task before leaving for China, I have asked for a flight delay as I think that I will be brief this morning. HE Mam Bun Heng, Minister of Health, already filed a report to us all of the overall progress of health sector. Today we are welcoming 3,986 more human resource into the health sector, some of whom would find jobs in state hospitals and some would work in private ones. Some would also practice this trade on their own.
I wish to express my sincere appreciation for efforts made by HSU to achieve such progress and to congratulate our graduates at all levels. I hope they will be able to find jobs and continue to make advancements in their careers. Science is advanced and so are health checking equipments. However, we need human resource to be advanced too or it would not be a difference. We need to master knowledge, technology, and equipments.
Consider Patients’ Lives as Their Owns
What is more important would be virtue of a physician. I would like to take this opportune moment to appeal once again to our physicians to consider patients’ lives as their own. No matter how fascinating our policies would be, if our physicians did not implement them, we would see no changes. Recently, I have proposed to implement certain policy vis-à-vis pregnant women in the framework of social protection policy to start on 1 January 2018. The state will provide cash for women workers in delivery, in addition to their three-month maternity leave with 120% salary. As we all know, pregnancy follow-up check is free of charge for all.
You may remember that these past years I have called on and we have focused on midwife training. It turned out that we have a high demand for them. We have now reached a reasonable big number of midwives. We must keep up with this task. It is not over yet. We need to go far to reach our goal to serve the need for health inspection and treatment for our people.
I hope that the health budget package for health is getting bigger because, like a social guarantee, it demands that everyone is accessible to health inspection and treatment. We are looking forward to implementing a universal policy on this. We are now putting into practice an equitable fund for over three million people. We will include roughly some 1.2 million workers into the system. We will make further efforts to achieve new progresses.
No Age Limit to Promotion in Health Sector
I hope that those of you who graduated with different specializations and levels will heed these recommendations and make use of them to serve our people’s need. We have resolved some of the issues in the past. In the recent past, we also revolved this problem relating to age. It was not an issue of the Ministry of Health alone but also those laws that we had in place before. Specialists had not been admitted into the government payroll because their ages exceed allowed for entry exam. That had finally brought about issue that in hospitals, we had professor specialist to work under a Doctor, who sometimes was only a contracted ones. Now we have no more problem concerning ages to take exams to get a government position in the health sector. We also carry out similar policy in public functions for those of you who would want to change your careers or to get a promotion. There will be no age limit anymore. This we talk about reform. We will fix what needs to be.
Will Ask China for Technical Materials for Health
In my visit to China today, I would propose to my Chinese counterparts to provide Cambodia with technical materials for health sector as we are looking to strengthen and expand more referral hospitals to areas where there are concentrations of factories. I do not wish to continue because I already have a plane in waiting. I might have to have lunch on the plane as I will have to start work until late at night after stepping out. Yesterday I also came to Koh Pich to meet some four thousands workers. I have scheduled to meet workers on every Wednesday but for this week, I will reschedule such meeting with over ten thousand workers to Friday. We are doing it in the framework of further promoting our industrial sector 2015/2025 to help achieve our goal of moving Cambodia from lower middle-income country to higher middle-income country in 2030.
Allow No Treason as In 1970
As for treason act, there will be no forgiveness. The National Assembly is in session today. (Should) the treason act were conspired in the party as a whole, the party would have to dissolve according to law. We allow no treason to destroy our country like what they did in 1970. It has been fortunate that Cambodia discovered such treason, and had arrested the person who carried it out. If the concerned party continued to defend the person who committed treason, it would mean that the party was also one of a kind. That would call for action that such party should not be functioning in the Cambodian democracy anymore. There are many political parties in Cambodia. Though one party is dissolved, there will be many more.
Please allow me to send out a message to our compatriots that any conspiracy carried out with foreign countries to destroy Cambodia as in the 1970s would not go free. It was because of treason committed by Lon Nol, Sirikmatak, Cheng Heng, In Tam, the country suffered heinous tragedy. It was a good luck that we discovered the treason. It was a systematic conspiracy. Let us leave the matter to law. Democracy without rule of law would bring anarchy and/or bloodshed. According to law, we arrested a man who committed treason in flagrante delicto […]
National Assembly Meets to Decide on Legal Procedure
The National Assembly meeting this morning is not to strip off parliamentary immunities but to decide if they would allow a legal procedure to start. If they wish to stop that process, they would need to find three-fourth voices in the National Assembly to do so […] where can they find them. It is not a simple matter. It is not a case on adultery. It is a treason case. You may want to go back to his words. A Cambodian politician ordered by foreign nation to do this, to do that, and he even would want to do to Cambodia as what happened in Yugoslavia. After the fall of Yugoslavia, what happened? There were divisions. Finally, Kosovo asks Cambodia to recognize it. That is the tragedy from the fall of Yugoslavia.
I am also asking a member of the National Assembly who escaped to Thailand yesterday to return because has had involved in a case of the 2013 protest […] It is known that he had escaped to the Thai side through Komrieng pass […] should there be a need, we will be able to cooperate with Thailand to bring you back. However, let me just confirm that the meeting today is no to strip anyone of parliamentary immunity but to decide whether the treason case should continue legally.
Foreign Embassies Should Not Be Parental on Cambodia
I hope our people and foreign friend understand. We cannot allow our nation destroyed by anyone. Certain foreign embassies have acted as if they were parents of Cambodia. They do not seem represent a state […] we have yet a score of 2.7 million tons of bombs on our land to resolve. They came on us, attacked us, and demanded us to pay […] Remember in front of the National Assembly, HM the King was shaking hands goodbye with diplomats, an ambassador walked with this hands like this. It was a lout diplomacy. We cannot accept such diplomatic behavior. I hope that it did not happen and would not have happened in diplomacy since Cambodia observes mutual respect with every country. I hope that this world will have more justice, mutual respect, and use no force or threats on one another […]./.
