Sitting in a dark movie theatre in Canada, laughing at some silly family drama about rich people. It is always about rich people. Cell phone vibrates. Text from Cambodia turns the silliness into a vapid waste of time. Achrep has died after a ten month ordeal with Breast Cancer. She was only 27 years old and she was desperately poor. She must be one of thousands every year.

I was introduced to Achrep with the hope that I could help to find a way to pay for her medical care. Achrep worked as a cleaner in a workshop and did some sewing tasks. My friends were going to train Achrep to work in their silk studio, giving her marketable skills and a sustainable way of life.

I was sure I could raise  funds in Canada to help to some extent.  Achrep had a breast removed. Five hundred dollars covered that as well as some medications, further tests and food while she stayed in hospital. That was the beginning of a nightmarish awakening.

Things happened that were beyond my comprehension and I seriously doubted whether the funds where helping Achrep or contributing to her demise.  It is not enough to have money to pay for medical services, you have to have reliable information in order to have informed consent. Here in Canada, where the health care standard is high, we hear of unnecessary testing and interventions causing harm. The medical system in Cambodia is sketchy to say the least. One option was to get her into a French hospital but my friends would never have been able to pay the much higher costs charged there. If we could have raised the funds, there would be no going back to the hospital that Achrep had gone to in the first place. So what would happen the next time a family member was ill or needed medical help.

Another funder stepped forward to provide enough to get Achrep radiation treatments which may have actually killed her. Eventually Achrep’s mother took her back to the country to try some traditional healing methods, where she died last week.

This a horrible reality where there are no easy answers. No one will ever know if Achrep received the care she should have or if our well intended funds helped or hindered her. We won’t know the real story of what happened to Achrep or if things could have turned out differently.

What to do next time…and there will be a next time. Poverty ensnares people and ensures that suffering, disease, corruption and crime will present in their lives. If any of you have feedback, ideas, experience with this I would love to hear from you.