Test For Life 2009

The last site was Sukhbaatar village of Selenge province. It is a main gate to the Russia and TFL reached there by vehicle traveled 650km. The province is one of the most developed in agriculture.

The provincial hospital was pretty good equipped, but as common in other provinces no developed cervical cancer screening there, still no cytology lab exists. In 17^th and 18^th of August were screened 282 local women.  TFL team had a good support from local medical staff, thanks to Dr Selenge, nurse Tsetsegmaa and Dr Od, a director of the hospital.

By visiting this site, TFL 2009 completed its main stage of collecting the screening pap smears for further processing and reading. Total collected 2800 smears as planed initially.

Finally, TFL covered all 21 provinces of Mongolia; most provinces were visited for the first and one time. And to have a real impact and benefit for local community, it is required to re-visit for screening 3-4 times provinces to screen new unscreened women in order to involve minimum 1000-1500 screenings in each site.

(Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No8)

TFL team reached Choir village of Gobi-Sumber province by vehicle. It is a small province located in South-East from UB and expected to be another mining town in the near future.

Women and local community were very well informed about TFL visit, some of them came from nearby villages and provinces. In 10^th and 11^th August, 324 women had been involved in the screening.

Provincial doctors attended in TFL classes, some medical graduate students met there and had an opportunity to learn and practice in cervical cancer screening procedure.

(Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No7)

Sainshand is a provincial center of Dorno-Gobi (East Gobi) province. The village located close to the main train and vehicle entrance to China, a regular local train makes easy for patients to get the UB for detected cases.

A small team of TFL visited the village for their first time and welcomed by local medical staff. TFL volunteers were well known for them from 2000 when was conducted first regional workshops on organizing the care and service for terminally ill cancer patients in Umnu-Gobi (South Gobi) province, guided by Dr Bayar.

Because of having a good colposcope in the Sainshand provincial hospital, some of very suspicious patients for cervical cancer had an opportunity to be examined colposcopically and managed locally without referring to UB.

Local medical staff actively participated in TFL classes.

In Sainshand were screened 404 women in 3^th and 4^th of August. (Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No6)

Mungunmorit is a small village belongs to Tuv province located in the north of Baganuur village. The village hospital has one family doctor and nurse serve 2000 residents.

Some TFL friends and supporters came and joined the team in Mungunmorit. The team made efforts to involve mainly mothers with children.

75 women participated in the screening in 29^th July. (Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No5)

Initially Baganuur was a coal mining village with independent status. Now it belongs to and became a remote district of Ulaanbaatar locating 130km to the east with a pretty well infrastructure and electricity. But no cervical cancer screening implemented.

TFL came to the village in 2007. Because of since that no cervical cancer screening is developed locally, TFL concentrated more on providing modern knowledge and education for medical staff. 40 local health care providers participated in the training.

As an appreciation to TFL service, local mining officials guided TFL team to the mining factory and introduced to coal production.

320 women were involved in the screening in 27^th and 28^th July. (Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No4)

TFL team has arrived to the site No3 after 7 hours of driving in a plane steppe of eastern Mongolia. Baruun Urt is the center of Sukhbaatar province which was used as a pasture for Manju Emperor’s livestock in time of Ching Dynasty,China. There are a lot of historical places and amazing stories about Mongolian “Robin Hoods” during that time.

Not often come service like TFL to the province and Chief of Health Department, Dr Batmunkh and Dr Batsanaa were most kind and helpful to our team. For the first time, women of the province had opportunity to be screened for cervical cancer and in 23^th and 24^th July, 441 local women were involved in the service and became beneficiaries of the project.

(Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No3)

The road to Choibalsan was much worse than previous to Undurkhaan. Even the TFL team left in the early morning from Khentii province; it has taken 8 hours to reach the second project site. Choibalsan is the centre of Dornod which is the eastern province bordering with Manjuria. There are several historical monuments indicated to time of war between Japan and Mongolia in 1939.

Local health caregivers were very helpful; cytologist Dr Tojil, oncologist Dr Saraa and gynecologist Dr Saraa. They have a medical oncology department for chemotherapy and palliative care; very few provinces have this service. The provincial hospital was a surprisingly well networked with 24 hours high speed of internet.

TFL doctors met warm welcome of patients operated from 2 to 10 years ago from different cancer. As request from local doctors and families, two women from remote country have been operated by TFL doctors; 2 open surgeries; one is atypical case of a rare form of tumor and another is atypical uterine tumor.  Normally this kind of cases referred to Cancer Center in Ulaanbaatar. The first one was very complicated case, but fortune was in our side because of having surgeon Dr Ochiro. Both patients are recovering and their conditions are fine now.

As always hundreds women were waiting for TFL at provincial hospital. In 20^th and 21th July, 438 women have screened for cervical cancer. (Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No2)

The TFL bus left UB at 14:00 in 16^th July and reached Undurkhaan village of Khentii province at 21:30. The Khentii is the 17th province served by TFL. The village was a clean and big enough for 15000 residents. Khentii province is a birth place of Temuujin – “Chinggis Khaan” and there are a lot of historical places there, but the team had no time to visit its.

In the morning of 17^th and 18^th July, a provincial hospital’s outpatient section were full of women, hundreds and hundreds; some of them came from remote places few days before, some with small children and some men came first just to get a number for his wife. They were very well informed about TFL visit and very much aware on importance of cervical cancer early detection and prevention.  Some cancer patients had an opportunity to meet and have a follow up and ultrasound exam by their Dr Ochiro and Dr Bayar as well. Local difficulties of no electricity could not avoid us, mobile or solar power source is proposed for the next time.

The local medical staff welcomed TFL and helped much, especially thanks to Dr Purevsuren. In Khentii province was proposed to screen 400 women, but we had more then enough and 516 women have been involved for the screening and became beneficiaries of the project. (Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album of site No1)

TFL 2009 Opening ceremony took a place in Grand Khan Restaurant terrace in 16 July 13:00. The day was wonderful and sunny, especially notable after few days of continues rain. On the wall of the stage were posted a banner with logos of sponsors from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

PAG Ganbold joined the event and hosted the ceremony in a lively Rotary spirit. President 2009-2010 of Khuree club, Sharavrentsen opened the event. IPAG Oyungerel and AG Bertsetseg participated and made a speech as well. Khuree Rotarians, Rotaractors and Interactors all were there. Rotarian Dr Bayar had a story about how TFL started in September 2005, how the TFL team reached a first screening site in a heavy snow day and dangerous route.

TV and newspaper reporters have taken an interview from TFL leader Rotarian Dr Bayar and young medical volunteers Dr Dulguun and Dr Sukhee who serve as cyto-technicians.

Famous Mongolian Rock and Pop Stars like Tom Jagaa, Barkhas and Dashka have joined TFL 2009 Opening and expressed their support by singing their famous songs about mother and women. A young promising singer, Rotaractor Khongor made his entertainment on success. Especially made cake for 5^th year of service of TFL with Rotary International wheel was a surprise of the event and everyone had his piece of sweet.

The ceremony has shown a genuine Rotary family spirit to the local community. All were singing “The Rotary song”. (Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album)

In 9th July, TFL 2009 press conference have been done in Mongolian National Broadcaster press room. AG Beree, Rtn Odmaa, TFL volunteer – screening nurse Budmaa have attended in the conference. 5TVs, 3 radios and newspapers participated and interviews done with Dr Bayarsaikhan and Assistant Governor Beree on purpose of TFL09 and screening trip timelines. The news were broadcasted by National TV and other mass media through nationwide. (Click on the photo link to proceed to the web album)