11/12/2025
December 12, 2025
Dear friends,
I have just returned from Cambodia and want to share the work we did with the Nokor Tep Organization and Luang Me Hospital (formerly the Nokor Tep Women’s Hospital). I was asked to speak on behalf of Nokor Tep. I think the speech says it all.
• Your Excellency Pech Chanmony Hun Manet
• Honorable Dr Sou Syphanna, Luang Me Director
• Honorable team of the hospital
• Distinguished guests
Today is a deeply meaningful day for the Nokor Tep Organization. It is a profound honor to stand here at this land handover ceremony, presided over by Lok Chumteav Pech Chanmony Hun Manet, the First Lady of the Royal Government of Cambodia.
Allow me to share, from the heart, the story behind this hospital.
Since 1994, I have walked through countless villages across Cambodia. In those villages, I met many women—mothers, sisters, grandmothers—silently suffering from vaginal infections, breast diseases, and cancers they could not understand, could not diagnose, could not treat. I remember their eyes: filled with pain, but also with dignity.
Then, in 2010, I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer. Yet within 15 minutes, the treatment plan for my cancer was organized in Singapore. I was saved by knowledge, by access, and by resources.
But the women in the villages—women with the same illnesses—had none of this. At that time, except for those with poor cards, treatment was beyond reach. There was no information, not enough specialized facilities, no financial means. Their fate depended not on medicine, but on circumstances.
Today, thanks to the government’s social protection program, healthcare has become more equitable, more accessible, more just. But back then, the difference between life and death was simply luck.
It was in that painful contrast that the vision of a cancer hospital for Cambodian women was born.
I shared this dream with Her Excellency Ing Kantha Phavi. She listened, looked at me, and immediately said, “No Janne, you are not alone. We will do this together.”
When His Excellency Trac Thai Sieng heard about it, he said, “No—you need a man with you as well.”
And just like that, we became three. Three people bound by one dream. God provided me with partners who would never abandon the vision entrusted to us.
It took seven and a half years to build the hospital. Seven and a half years of sacrifice, determination, and faith. During that time, there were many—both inside Cambodia and abroad—who doubted us, criticized us, even tried to stop us. But every time we stumbled, we remembered why we began: the women of Cambodia. They were our strength. They were our fire.
May I also say this to you, for the vision of Luang Me Hospital:
It will take time.
There will be critics.
There will be obstacles.
But hold tightly to your vision, just as we held to ours. Let that vision be your compass.
We opened the hospital in June 2019—only for Covid to arrive in 2020. In 2021, Samdech Techo Hun Sen requested the hospital to serve the nation during the crisis, and the government purchased it. The responsibility for the hospital was entrusted to His Excellency Hun Manet and Her Excellency Pech Chanmony, who led with courage through one of the most difficult moments in our history.
When the hospital was purchased, the three of us grieved. It felt as though the dream we had built with our own hands had been taken away. But in 2022, his Excellency Hun Manet invited the Nokor Tep founders to a ceremony to formalize our donation to TYDA, and it was there that he said the words we had prayed to hear:
“This hospital will become the National Cancer Center of Cambodia.”
In that moment, we were so grateful and waited patiently to see the dream move forward.
In January 2025, Luang Me Hospital began receiving patients. When we met the Director and his team, we saw something profoundly moving: their dedication, their discipline, their heart. We saw their vision—to become Cambodia’s leading provider of excellence in cancer care, grounded in quality, equity, and affordability.
Their values share Nokor Tep foundation values.
They shared their needs, their dreams, and their plans. We listened—and we recognized the same fire that once burned in us. So Nokor Tep decided that our role now was to support the next generation of dreamers.
We made an agreement to support women’s health:
• To fund up to 800 pap smears per month
• To purchase a digital X-ray machine
• And to purchase 7,176 square meters of land beside the hospital for future nuclear medicine and additional patient rooms.
Over the past year, Luang Me has treated 87,668 patients—and 73.16% were women.
Among them, 23% were the poorest, and 60% were supported by NSSF.
5,473 women received pap smears, and 10%—more than 500 women—were found with abnormal HPV strains. All 500 women received treatment. Lives were saved. Futures were restored.
For me, the most emotional moment of this visit was sitting with the women undergoing chemotherapy—women just like those I sat beside in the villages so many years ago.
To see them receiving the care they deserve…it felt like a circle finally completed.
Your Excellency Pech Chanmony, Director Sou Syphanna, and your dedicated team:
With deep humility and profound gratitude, the Nokor Tep Organization is honored to present to you the land title to 7,176 square meters adjacent to Luang Me Hospital.
May this land become a place where more lives are saved, more families are protected, and no one is ever left behind.
Thank you.
