Health Policy With No Clarity

The health system of a country has to deliver three basic services: preventive, curative, and rehabilitative care. These services are delivered through primary, secondary and tertiary health care institutions, doctors, nurses and medical specialists. The foremost duty of a state is to provide good quality primary health care services to its people. Development of health services depends on health care policies pursued by the government.

The health care system of Mongolia is ranked first in the world for having the most number of physicians per 1,000 people. However, the quality of Mongolia’s health services is one of the worst internationally and preventive service is almost non-existent today, forcing Mongolian citizens to avoid receiving domestic health services and instead entrust their health to foreign hospitals. The health policy, which permits these things to happen, lacks clarity.

ANOMALY IN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Mongolia, population three million, has 600 state-owned hospitals and 1,200 private ones. Mongolia’s health industry has a total of 40,000 employees, 7,500 of which are doctors and 9,200 are nurses. Mongolia has 27 doctors, 36 nurses and 58 hospitals beds per 10,000 people. Although these numbers are higher than those of developed countries, the quality of medical services is worse than that of developing countries.

Private hospitals in Mongolia specialize in different organs of human body and have separate databases that have no interconnection. There are a total of 1,200 private hospitals and 1,000 of them have no beds for patients. The rest, 200 private hospitals, have 10 hospital beds on average and are located in residential apartments. Those hospitals have the same functions as recreational facilities and do not admit patients in critical conditions. If these private hospitals come across such patients, they just send them over to public hospitals.

Primary care is provided through 311 soum hospitals and 220 family group practice facilities. The funding for primary health care is allocated in relation to the local population. Currently, the yearly funding per capita is about 17,000 MNT, which is approximately 10 USD. It is six times less than the amount recommended by the World Health Organization to Mongolia.

Secondary care is supposed to be delivered through 22 aimag (provincial) hospitals and nine district hospitals. However, district hospitals do not perform the simplest of surgeries, deliver babies or provide child health services. That...