Dr. Hay’s return to Cambodia: it was thirty years ago

In early August, the PPM-Confirel Group Executive Committee meeting was held. Every quarter, the Group Executive Committee meeting brings together the management of the departments, during which each one reports on its performance and shares its priority objectives.

This meeting was a special one as it coincided with the 30th anniversary of the return to Cambodia of Dr. Hay Ly Eang, founder of the Group.

Having left Phnom Penh a few days before the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, Dr. Hay had tried to return to Cambodia in 1990 and 1991, but at that time, Vietnam, which exercised its control over the country, decided who could enter or not. “In 1990 and 1991, I met friends only at the border. It wasn’t until 1992 that I was able to set foot on Cambodian soil again,” said Dr. Hay, answering questions from the Group’s youngest staff.

A doctor of pharmacy graduate in France, Dr. Hay, who ran a pharmacy in the Paris area, had not been without connections to Cambodia during his exile. In 1980s, he had organized the delivery of medicines to the country, which was then under embargo, as part of a humanitarian operation allowing Cambodians in exile to show their solidarity with their families in homeland, where medicines were cruelly lacking.

When he returned in 1992, he discovered with his own eyes the deep destitution in which lived the population, particularly in terms of health, and, after thinking on the best way for him to help the country, he organized in a few weeks the import of a container of medicines from France. “The country was full of poor quality or counterfeit medicines, sold tablet by tablet on stalls in poor conditions in the markets. I did my best to make safe and affordable medicines available to everyone as quickly as possible,” recalled Dr. Hay.

It was this approach, which he explains in his 2015 memoir ‘Beyond the Cambodian Storms,’ that led him to create PPM Laboratories in 1996.

30 years after this return to his native land, Dr. Hay, with his 300 collaborators, has made PPM the leader in pharmaceutical production in the kingdom and one of Cambodia’s leading exporting companies. With a strong presence of its brands and products, in French-speaking Africa, PPM Laboratories contribute to the better health of Cambodians and to the health of country’s inhabitants in the World South countries.

“I haven’t seen these thirty years pass”, said Dr. Hay after recalling the major stages of his career. It’s easy to see why when you consider what he has been accomplished.