Hong Kong’s Rotary and Land Rover clubs turn an old truck into a mobile clinic for Mongolia’s poor

Hong Kong’s Rotarians could soon save more lives, with the help of the city’s Land Rover community. For the past 18 months, they have given a tired Aussie six-wheel-drive truck a new mission – as an urgently needed mobile clinic in the poor outskirts of Ulan Bator and the rugged wilderness of its surrounding steppes.

The project stemmed from the Rotary Club of Hong Kong’s 86-year-old charity fundraising tradition, in which the 60-member club has funded more than 220 community projects worth a cumulative value of HK$61 million. One of these causes has been “Test for Life”, which since 2006 has partnered Hong Kong Rotarians on regional projects with counterparts in Taiwan, South Korea and Mongolia. The partnership’s Mongolian arm has been active under the supervision of obstetrician and gynaecologist Bayarsaikhan Mongol, who is a charter president of the Rotary Club of Ulaanbaatar Central.

With Rotary members and regionally funded equipment, Bayarsaikhan’s team has tested more than 30,000 women in the country’s poor and remote areas over the past 10 years, “saving close to 1,800 lives, thanks to early detection”, says Marta Dowejko, the Polish president of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong.

“This clinic will provide screening and treatment services against cervical cancer and is set to influence behavioural changes for an improved quality of life and better health in Mongolian women,” says Dowejko, a professor of entrepreneurial studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. “According to the World Health Organisation, cervical cancer is the second-most common type of cancer in women worldwide. Due to poor access to screening and treatment services, more than 90 per cent of deaths occur in women living in low- and middle-income countries.”