A partnership and advocacy meeting on “Midterm Strategy of Health System Strengthening in Umnugobi Aimag 2015–2017” signed in March, was held on 27 November 2015 in Dalanzadgad, the Umnugobi province’s centre. The Strategy aims at meeting essential health needs and resolving priority health problems of Umnugobi residents through fostering horizontal linkages and supporting collaborative efforts of state and non-state actors and international organizations.
“Implementation of this Strategy is a considerable part of the health sector reform. We’ve worked out this Strategy in collaboration with WHO to provide rural people with modern diagnostics and treatment possibilities to prevent the Mongolians from financial hardships and loss of time inevitable when seeking medical care abroad. The Strategy also entails prevention and early diagnostic and effective treatment of diseases,” said Ts. Oyunbaatar, the Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia and the acting Minister for Health and Sports addressing the packed meeting hall of the Umnugobi’s Government Palace in Dalanzadgad. “There is one progressive development - we’ll do diagnosis in herders’ gers. Then data collected will immediately be transferred to medical centres where diagnosis will be made and possible treatments advised. We are proud that this new, historic development in disease prevention and diagnostics in Mongolia is starting from Umnugobi aimag.”
Dr Soe Nyunt U, the WHO Representative in Mongolia reiterated saying that introduction of mobile health technology for health screening of major communicable and non-communicable diseases with integration of Wi-Fi ready equipment as blood pressure monitoring, electrocardiogram and ultrasound devices that can be used in herders’ gers are geared towards making sure that people are screened before they become sick. “This means we’ll be able to do early prevention and treatment of common diseases in Mongolia, reaching out to people who live in the most remote corners of this vast country,” said Dr Soe Nyunt U. “What is introduced in Umnugobi will be further rolled out in the rest of the country.”
Umnugobi or South Gobi province of Mongolia is the rural pilot site of WHO supported Sub-national Health Systems Strengthening Programme. The pilot started in 2013 and focused on primary health care capacity strengthening including Reach Every District Strategy, a WHO strategy on improving immunization coverage for vaccine-preventable diseases. The pilot also supported strengthening health promotion and prevention from major communicable and non-communicable diseases and providing support for better health information systems including data storage and analysis by introducing the District Health Information System 2, a web-based health information systems platform, designed to serve as a district-based country data warehouse to address both local and national needs. WHO pilot Programme also supports introduction of health impact assessments in environmental impact assessments particularly because South Gobi accommodates most mining projects, large and small, undertaken in Mongolia. Moreover within the Sub-national Health Systems Strengthening Programme WHO country office has worked on improving essential surgical care in the province in collaboration with the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Mongolian National University for Medical Sciences and Western Australia’s Flying Doctor’s Service. “Partnerships are important and WHO is continuing building partnerships to ensure well-performing and strong health systems that save human lives and prevent from diseases,” said Dr Soe Nyunt U at the meeting.
The second WHO pilot site of the Sub-national Health System Strengthening Programme is located in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, in the most populous district of Songinokhairkhan.
In the next two years WHO will concentrate its support on introducing novel portable technologies for early prevention and detection of diseases among remote herder populations of Mongolia and improving information management systems in the Departments of Health in both pilot sites.