These first two days of our trip have been spent touring the city and the local hospitals to get a feel for the way health care is handled here in Mongolia and to see what kind of supplies they have to work with. Mongolia contains about 2.6 million people and 1.5 million of them live in Ulaanbaatar! The traffic is terrible which causes the ambulance services to take sometimes hours before tranferring a patient to a hospital where they can receive help. Many things are very different here in Mongolia and it definately makes one realize how fortunate we are in America to have the easy access to medical assistance that we do. They do the best with what they have and are trying to make their system better in every way but resources are limited. Although I knew the healthcare system would not be as technologically advanced as in America, it was still somewhat shocking to see and experience. Even though we are only here for a few days, I hope that what we have to offer them will help immensly as they attempt to better their emergency systems (they do not even have an emergency department at the hospital!).
Today as we toured one of the bigger and nicer hospitals, we also toured their Traditional Medicine Department. The doctor there was young and very westernized (surprisingly!). He was intelligent and spoke incredibly good English. He showed us many procedures including acupuncture. He performed a quick demonstration on my arm...my first acupuncture treatment! It was supposed to help my stomach because apparently most people have stomach issues but he took them out before they could do any good I guess. Really interesting! He also read our tongues...to tell us our energy and stress level etc. He used what they call "western medicine" when taking vitals and diagnosis and then performed traditional/herbal medicine if the patient was not in critical conditions...all very different from what we know in the US.
Other than that we have been touring the city. The people are a mix of Russian, Asian, and Western styles. A few older Mongolians dress in traditional clothes and most of the younger Mongolians are wearing western styles. The people have all been very welcoming and kind. Most of them have a great desire to improve their English and love talking with us to do so. We have met a couple young Mongolian girls that have either gone to medical school or are in medical school and they have really enjoyed talking with me since I am the young American girl and we can relate on many subjects. A few doctors are taking us to the countryside tomorrow where we will get to maybe ride some camels or horses!
Well what did your tongue say?
ReplyDeleteHe didn't read mine unfortunately!...Instead he poked me with needles and told me it would help my stomach haha. He read Dr. Snyder's and told her she has too much stress and then read our Chaplain Bill's tongue and told him he has too much heat...not sure what that means! I wanted him to read mine but he already moved onto something else ha
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