AMBULANCE TO MONGOLIA PILOT PROJECT

According to the latest available figures, there is a shortfall in ambulances of nearly 20 per cent across Mongolia and those that are provided by the government are of wildly varying quality.  In addition, there is a great shortage of emergency equipment for each ambulance including respiratory equipment, heart monitors and medicinal supplies as well as tools.  Technical equipment that breaks is often not replaced.  People are not always suitably trained to use the equipment and there may be lack of maintenance and technical support.

The ambulance project

Go Help and London Ambulance Service staff, March 2011

Go Help is running a pilot project that aims to provide fully functioning emergency ambulances to supplement those already provided by the health service in Mongolia.  The project will start in late summer 2011 and will involve up to ten ambulances being leased to Mongolian hospitals by Go Help, which will retain the responsibility for maintenance and spare parts.  The hospitals will be responsible for day-to-day running costs as well as providing staff to operate them.  In addition, Go Help is working with the London Ambulance Service to explore the possibility of sharing expertise with Mongolian health professionals.  If the project is successful, the scope will be widened in 2012.

Go Help is the organiser of the Mongolia Charity Rally, a yearly adventure event in which teams travel from London to Ulaanbaatar to raise funds for charity.  Go Help is thus ideally placed to provide a sustainable supply of ambulances to Mongolian hospitals and other health providers, and has previous experience of placing ambulances with healthcare providers.  The bulk of the ambulances were previously used by the British National Health Service and other European health services.

Case study from Tajikistan

In the Summer of 2010, Ricky Roycroft from Bandon, Ireland drove the first ambulance on Roof of the World Rally to Tajikistan.  Ricky was able to do an official handover and induction to the chief doctor and ambulance driver of the city of Kurghan-Tyube, in the south west of the country.

The city which has roughly 80,000 inhabitants, making it the third largest in the country, previously relied on two small chinese minibuses, with nothing that might make you think they were ambulances – no stretchers, lights or medical facilities.   Ricky’s ambulance (donated by the people of Cork) is the first ambulance in the city that has a stretcher and functioning lights & sirens.

Sworde-Teppa, a small educational charity the Rally has traditionally supported in Kurghan-Tyube has been monitoring the vehicle and has recently sent us through some photos of it being used in the city.  In its day to day use it is being used by the city’s maternity hospital – in an aim to try and lower maternal and infant death rates.

At the maternity hospital.

Go Help Ambulance donated in 2010

These photos above have just been taken of the ambulance being used and it seems that it has found a good home for itself in Kurghan-Tyube.  Due to the success in placing this ambulance and the enthusiasm from the Tajik government for further ambulances, we hope that that 2011 Roof of the World Rally will see teams following Ricky’s lead…