A Cellist-Physician’s Quest to Save the Lives of Countless Cambodian Kids
My thoughts on the incredible life and work of Dr. Beat Richner.
Half a decade ago, my wonderful wife and partner in adventure, Bhavna, and I were backpacking our way across the captivating landscapes of Cambodia. While we were doing the usual rounds - marveling at the ancient temples of Angkor and soaking in the vibrant street life - we stumbled upon a large, modern hospital in Siem Reap. Affixed to it was a sign that stopped us in our tracks: a notice for a "Beatocello Concert." The name sounded more like a whimsical musical act than something connected to a medical institution, and our curiosity was piqued.
It was only in trying to uncover the details of this "Beatocello" concert, an event we had never heard of prior to our trip, that we began to learn about the astonishing life of Dr. Beat Richner, the man behind the music and the medicine. The more we learned about the story of this incredible physician and his life's work, the more fascinated we became, until, in one fell swoop, our fascination turned to poignant regret. We learned that Dr. Richner had passed away just a couple of months before our arrival in Cambodia. We had missed the chance to witness a legend, but his story has stayed with us ever since.
Dr. Beat “Beatocello” Richner: A Physician's Journey
Dr. Richner's story, eloquently captured in his New York Times obituary, is one of unwavering dedication. After training in pediatrics at the Zurich Children’s Hospital and graduating in 1973, his path took a dramatic turn. In 1974, the Swiss Red Cross dispatched him to Cambodia, a nation already mired in a brutal civil war between the government of Lon Nol and the encroaching rebel forces of the Khmer Rouge. Dr. Richner's mission at the Kantha Bopha children's hospital came to an abrupt halt when the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, expelling foreign aid workers and plunging the country into darkness.
Forced to return to Zurich, Dr. Richner resumed his career, opening a private practice in 1980 and pursuing the conventional track of a successful doctor in the developed world. Meanwhile, Cambodia was enduring the genocidal horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot. Between 1975 and 1979, an estimated two million people, over a quarter of the country's population, were killed, including the vast majority of its teachers, doctors, nurses, scientists and intellectuals. The healthcare system was completely obliterated. To be an intellectual, to wear spectacles, to live in the city or to have a graduate education made them targets.
Though physically back in Switzerland, Dr. Richner’s heart remained in Cambodia. In 1991, following a peace agreement and the arrival of the UN Transitional Authority (UNTAC), the Cambodian government sent a formal request: would he return to rebuild and manage the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospital, the very institution the Khmer Rouge had destroyed?
Dr. Richner did not just accept; he returned with a vision far grander than restoring a single building. In March 1992, he established the Kantha Bopha Foundation in Zurich to secure funding and relocated to Phnom Penh with the express goal of rebuilding the nation’s pediatric healthcare services from the ground up. By November 2nd, 1992, against all odds, the first Kantha Bopha hospital was up and running, with streams of desperate parents and sick children knocking down its doors.
An Empire of Healing
The need was staggering. The Kantha Bopha I hospital was soon overwhelmed, handling over 1,000 outpatient consultations and admitting 350 inpatients daily. This led to a remarkable period of expansion fueled by Dr. Richner's relentless fundraising:
October 1996: Kantha Bopha II opened in Phnom Penh, built on land donated by King, and Prime Minister Norodom Sihanouk himself.
March 1999: Jayavarman VII Hospital (often called Kantha Bopha III) was inaugurated in Siem Reap, bringing world-class care to the doorstep of the historic Angkor temples.
2001: A maternity ward was added to the Siem Reap hospital, specifically to care for mothers living with HIV/AIDS and prevent mother-to-child transmission.
2005 & 2007: Kantha Bopha IV and V, two new state-of-the-art hospitals, were constructed in Phnom Penh to support the overburdened Kantha Bopha I.
By 2017, this network of hospitals provided over 80% of all pediatric healthcare in Cambodia, treating every child for free. The statistics from his foundation's website (wayback machine archive link, as the original website has been modified and I can no longer find this page) are a testament to the scale of his achievement:
Over the last 23 years the Kantha Bopha hospitals have treated 13 million outpatients & 1.56 million seriously ill children requiring hospitalisation.
The Beatocello Solution: Music, Medicine, and a Message
In addition to his remarkable feat of institution-building, Dr. Richner devised an ingenious way to connect the vast, swirling crowds of tourists in Cambodia to his philanthropic work. During his medical training in the 1970s, he had cultivated an artistic alter ego he dubbed "Beatocello", a musical comedian who charmed audiences with his cello and witty banter. He had performed across Europe, but in Cambodia, this persona became his most powerful fundraising tool.
He established a weekly, free concert in Siem Reap. I can only imagine the scene: a hall filled with tourists, fresh from the awe-inspiring ruins of Angkor Wat, settling in for a cello performance. But it was so much more than that. Dr. Richner, a true polyglot, would address the packed house in English, German, and French. He was a master showman, interspersing beautiful, soulful renditions of Bach, with stories, humor, and a direct, impassioned plea. As one attendee noted, he would often ask the younger tourists to donate blood, the older ones to donate money, and those in between to donate both. He would screen films showing the daily reality of his hospitals, offering unvarnished transparency to potential donors.
He would gently rib people in the crowd, disarming them with his wit before delivering the hard-hitting truths about the state of healthcare and the horrors the Cambodian people had endured. Through his music and his words, he told the story of a nation's wounds and how his hospitals were trying to apply a healing salve.
The Fire of a Principled Physician
Those who attended his concerts didn't just hear music; they witnessed the fire of Dr. Richner's convictions. As another travel blogger who saw him perform recalled (another wayback machine link, since the direct link does not work anymore), he didn't pull any punches. He was deeply critical of the policies of international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, which he accused of promoting a dangerous philosophy: that poor countries must accept a lower standard of medical care that matches their economic situation. This philosophy, the basic underlying principle of global health, was also championed by Paul Farmer and his Partners in Health movement.
You learn about Cambodia’s past and present
Having lived in Cambodia for the past 23 years, Dr. Richner has quite the knowledge about Cambodia’s past and present. You won’t just get Cello show but also a knowledgeable insight into Cambodia’s current political and social complexities, especially in the health division. Although remaining ‘politically correct’, Dr. Richner touches on some important aspects of Cambodia’s (and the world’s) health policies that leave us very much apprehensive and perplexed.
You get a humorous performance
Having been quite the musical comedian in his time, Dr. Richner will be sure to put on a show full of witty remarks and comedic behavior. Speaking a variety of languages including Swiss, German, French and English, and with considerable knowledge of world politics, be prepared to get picked out of the crowd for some innocuous humor.
You hear the sweet sounds of the Cello
Dr. Richner goes by the stage name of Beatocello, which comes from the combination of his first name and his favourite instrument, the Italian Cello. Having played the Cello for most of his adult life he is quite the performer and will put on a beautiful show of bittersweet, soulful music to your ears and to your heart, telling the story of the people of Cambodia through each of his performances.
Dr. Richner vehemently rejected the idea that the quality of healthcare should be any different in Cambodia than in Switzerland. He would swipe his cello bow dismissively and argue that while this might be the reality, it was not a reality we should ever accept. To him, this approach amounted to a policy of “poor medicine for poor people in poor countries.” He believed that tolerating this was to be complicit in what he bluntly called a “passive genocide of children.” His words were strong, born from a profound belief that a child’s right to quality healthcare is a universal human right, not an economic privilege.
Another blogger, who seemed to have attended his Beatocello sessions, and seems to be located in Cambodia, writes about the fire of Dr. Richner:
Dr Beat Richner is quite a performer — the founder, director and chief fundraiser of the Kantha Bopha group of children’s hospitals in Cambodia, he is passionate, eloquent — and a rather good cellist.
Every Saturday night Dr Richner attracts a large audience for his free ‘Beatocello’ concert at the Kantha Bopha 3 hospital in Siem Riep. The crowd, almost entirely tourists dropping in on the way to the nearby Angkor Wat, are treated to some lovely Bach, interspersed with an impassioned lecture in defense of his controversial approach to children’s healthcare in Cambodia.
He doesn’t pull any punches: the international community, through the World Health Organization, is accused of accepting and even promoting a situation where countries have to match the quality of their healthcare to their wider economic situation.
But that seems fair enough doesn’t it? As I heard him speak, I couldn’t help thinking that it’s only reasonable that we live within our means — if you’re a poor country you can only afford to provide a certain level of care. It’s not nice, but it’s the way things work — isn’t it?
No, absolutely not said Dr Richner, anticipating the objection and swiping his cello bow dismissively. This may be how things are, but it is not how they have to be. In fact, accepting this situation, in his view, amounts to a policy of “poor medicine for poor people in poor countries”. If we tolerate this, we are complicit in nothing short of a “passive genocide of children”. Strong words.
The Man Behind the Myth
For all the grandeur of his achievements, Dr. Richner lived a life of extreme austerity. The New York Times painted a quaint picture of the good doctor, a man whose life was wholly dedicated to two things: the hospital and his cello.
“His life was very limited and connected to only two things,” said Dr. Ky Santy, who became the director of Kantha Bopha after Dr. Richner stepped down for health reasons last year. “First, to the daily life of the hospital; and second, to the cello.”
Living austerely, Dr. Richner worked 12 hours a day, took no vacations and drove a 22-year-old car. He used a corner table at the hospital canteen as his office, meeting with staff there as he ate his customary breakfast of two hard-boiled eggs and a cup of coffee. For lunch, he would eat the same fare in the same spot before embarking on his hospital rounds. At 3:30 p.m. he would practice music.
We were humbled and deeply moved by these details. Standing in Siem Reap in the last week of 2018, we felt the weight of our missed connection. Dr. Richner had passed away on September 9th of that year, just weeks before our visit.
The endeavor of one man, armed with a cello and an unbreakable will, to provide sophisticated, compassionate healthcare in a country ravaged by war, genocide, and corruption remains a towering beacon of hope. The fact that he not only provided care but also fought to change the global conversation around it, taking his fight directly to the Cambodian government and the world's most powerful health organizations, is nothing short of heroic. He built a unique healthcare ecosystem that was Cambodian-led, ensuring that the hospitals would live on long beyond him, now under the capable leadership of his successor, Dr. Ky Santy. Dr. Richner's cello may be silent now, but his legacy of healing and justice plays on in the millions of lives he saved.