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Peter, Joe Deveruex and AG Gabe Hau. A serious Peter telling about Cambodia
Speaker and member behind the badge Peter Lugg told of his education at Melbourne Grammar and Melbourne University where he gained his Medical Degree and undertook post graduate studies at Harvard. He now practices in both Public and Private practice as an Orthopedic specialist and surgeon and has a special spot for Cambodia and its people. The show ‘Ben Casey’ inspired him to study medicine. Peter was also Carlton FC’s medical officer for many years and has been Hawthorn Hockey Club’s President for the past 16 years.
Of particular interest was the photo of Peter with a small “Fro” from his (much) younger days – 1982 Grand Final!
Peter has a particular interest in the people of Cambodia and assists in alleviating their medical conditions where possible, and to quote him ‘Cambodia is beguiling and feels like home’. He finds time to be in Cambodia every 5 to 8 weeks. A number of slides were shown of the work he and others perform there. His tenet is that if need be even at his own personal or financial cost, that people should be allowed the basics in life, the ability to feed oneself and family, and be educated to enable and improve opportunity and have freedom to be able to make choices and live a fruitful life unimpeded by draconian overseers.
It was explained that his work is primarily with the poorest Cambodians (approx. 30% of the population) who generally cannot access any medical advice as they just don’t have the means to pay. Most of it revolves around orthopedics and hip replacements.
One understands the problems from simple statistics. There was one hospital ‘Sinanouk’ supported predominately by a US Charity which now sees private patients as the funding source since the GFC ceased. The other hospitals often are filthy and have infection rates of up to 33% in hip operations alone. The country also suffers from low immunization rates across a number of illnesses and of particular concern is the continuing polio infection rates, a particularly nasty disease.
Cambodia also has few if any road rules and no labour laws so injury and death are ever present. Peter mentioned that there were often 500 deaths per month from road trauma alone and any deaths resulting from this prime cause subsequently in hospital are not included in these figures. The fact is that the Cambodian heath system requires substantial support from those outside of the country.
In an endeavor to provide support beyond equipment, logistics and professional capability Peter has adopted Cambodian families, provided local aid and has introduced Women’s hockey to the country.
He observed that the Cambodian people may have a similar mind set to Melbourne FC supporters who hark back to the club’s glory days of the 50s-60s, they -the Cambodian people-recall the Angkor Empire of the 14th century and in some perverse way it colours their view of their society today.
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