Phnom Penh: Health Minister, Mam Bunheng, has warned the kingdom’s private healthcare centres that they face the risk of closure if they refuse to admit patients. He was responding to a slew of reports over the past month that a number of patients had been refused admission to private healthcare facilities because they were suspected of having Covid-19. The minister says these hospitals run the risk of closure for discriminating against patients.

In a strongly worded statement released by the Ministry of Health this afternoon, the Minister described the refusal to accept patients as “a disgrace to the ministry and to the ethics of the doctors themselves”. He says private healthcare facilities can make use of rapid test kits to determine the status of patients, so that they know how these individuals need to be treated.

Currently, Covid-positive cases must be treated at state health facilities, but the Minister has stressed that suspected cases cannot be discriminated against and turned away without conducting a rapid test.