Medical Clinic To Be Officially Closed Today

The Surya Medical Services clinic will be officially closed down to­day, with its director, Gloria Chris­­tie, having yet to provide the Minis­try of Health with proof that she is a medical doctor, a ministry official said Monday.

The Health Ministry shut down the popular Phnom Penh clinic last week for having operated without a ministry license for the past six years.

“We are still waiting for the documents from Gloria,” said San Sary, director of the ministry’s hospital dep­artment.

“Gloria is in Bangkok…we will is­sue the official closure notice [to­day],” San Sary said.

Shortly before leaving Cambo­dia on Thursday, Christie declined to com­ment on whether she was a medical doctor, adding that she had sent the relevant paperwork to the ministry.

San Sary said that he has invited the Cambodian doctor named on the clinic’s expired license from 2000 to discuss the case. He said the doctor, whose name he could not recall, works at Phnom Penh’s Preah Monivong Hospital.

At Surya’s premises on Street 294, Dr Vanda Kap, who has work­ed at the clinic for two years, said he did not know whether Christie was a doctor.

“I do not know what is going on,” he said, adding that he has a medical doctorate from the Cam­bo­dian Faculty of Medicine.

Christie’s mobile telephone was an­swered later in the day by Vanda Kap, who said he did not know when she would return.

The closure of Surya was promp­­t­­ed by a complaint made by Austra­lian national Bronwyn Sloan, a correspondent for Deut­sche Presse-Agentur in Phnom Penh, who said that her daughter had been misdiagnosed.

Sloan said Monday that the misdiagnosis given by Christie was of a fractured skull.

“They said my daughter had been hit by a hammer and had a frac­tured skull,” she said, adding that she had been ready to file as­sault charges against a family friend, whom she did not name, until Christie’s diagnosis was disputed by three other medical professionals.

“[My daughter] had a common childhood infection,” she said of the final diagnosis.

Sloan added that although the Australian Embassy had told her it was limited in its ability to investigate Christie, the Embassy had been sup­portive.

Mam Bunheng, the Health Min­­istry secretary of state to whom Sloan brought her complaint, referred questions to Min­ister of Health Nuth Sokhom.

Nuth Sokhom said he was in Bat­tambang province and was un­aware that the clinic had closed. He re­ferred questions to the min­is­try’s Secretary of State Heng Taykry, who said he was too busy to comment.