Cancer Control in Mongolia v.1: HE Dr. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu Interviews Dr. Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh

Join us for the second episode, part 1, of our interview series “United Against Cancer with HE Dr. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu” on OncoDaily. In this episode, Dr. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu interviews Dr. Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh, the CEO of the National Cancer Council of Mongolia.

Her Excellency Dr. Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu is a global cancer advocate, a pediatrician, a UICC Board Member,  Founder of the Medicaid Cancer Foundation (MCF), and the Chairperson of First Ladies Against Cancer (FLAC). Dr Bagudu is working with the state ministries of health, education, and women affairs to implement programs to sustainably improve menstrual hygiene, girl-child education, economic empowerment of women, and put an end to gender-based violence. Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu is a member of the Editorial Board of OncoDaily.

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh is the Advisor To The Minister at Ministry of Health Mongolia. She is a medical doctor and microbiologist, she began her career as a general practitioner practicing in the remote areas of Mongolia. She started the non-profit National Cancer Council of Mongolia, which focuses particularly on health advocacy and supporting patients. She is the director of the new Medicine and Medical Device Regulatory Agency of Mongolia.

00:00 Introduction
1:15 About Dr. Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh
2:11 Cancer statistics in Mongolia
4:36 Goverment and cancer care in Mongolia
5:35 Cancer care in rural areas
7:30 Radiotherapy in Mongolia
7:53 Digital health in Mongolia

Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu: Fantastic. My name is Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu. I’m a pediatrician, but more of a cancer advocate working in women’s health from Nigeria.

I’m also a third time board member of the UICC, which I know that you’re also members of. And the essence of this interview is to try to exchange information and knowledge amongst the members and to see how we can learn from each other using the internet and digital technology that we have at our disposal. So very laid back, nothing technical.

I know that. So let’s hear a little bit, tell us about yourself, a little intro of your profile, please.

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh: Great to meet you, Zainab. My name is Tsetsegsaikhan. I’m a medical doctor by profession, and I have been working in the health sector for 23 years.

So I did my master’s degree in Australia in public health and health management and PhD degree in Russia. And I have been working, I started my career as a doctor at very rural health facility in Mongolia. I had been working at the Ministry of Health at the government agency on regulating medicines at the World Health Organization.

And for the last 10 years, I have been working as a founder and CEO of the National Cancer Council of Mongolia 

Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu: Excellent. So of course, I was looking at the profile of cancer in Mongolia and the whole demography of the place. And we can see that NCDs do have a large role to play in the death statistics of the country.

The population of Mongolia right now is about 3.5 million. Yes. So, and the total cancer cases in 2018 was over 5,000 and over 3,000, nearly 4,000 deaths from that.

So that’s a very, when you look at the new cases and the number of deaths is a lot. So I can understand the need, but tell us why did you start the National Cancer Council and maybe a little bit about the National Cancer Council of Mongolia.

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh: For the recent statistics, for example, last year, we had more than 7,200 new cases of cancer. So it means that the number of cancer cases are increasing. And as you know, Mongolia ranks the highest in death of certain cancers, especially from liver cancer, stomach cancer.

That’s why the cancer is a big burden for health system in our country. And National Cancer Council is a charity organization that was established 10 years ago. And we try to fill the gaps where the government can’t reach and support cancer patients.

So we, on one hand, we support cancer patients. So we provide them home away home, provide transportation services, psychosocial support services, provide educational materials. So this is trying to help cancer patients.

But on the other hand, we try to be advocates for cancer issues in our country. And we mostly work on cervical cancer, pediatric cancer, and try to advocate for improved access to treatment, improved care, and provide some evidence-based advocacy and tools.

Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu: Yeah, very interesting. Yes, I saw from the profile as well, that you focus a lot on cervical cancer and childhood cancers. And you were recently at one of the major WHO meetings.

So that is. But how would you say, do you think that in the years of your running the Council, has it become more of a priority for the government of Mongolia? And how is the government responding to cancer as a disease and as a life-threatening condition to its people?

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh: Yes, we can observe that over the last few years, government started to pay more attention on cancer. And cancer is the one of the priority areas of the government. And especially we have a lot of progress in terms of cervical cancer and pediatric cancer in our country.

Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu: You also have some hard-to-reach areas and rural areas in the country. And then you are a health systems person. You have a master’s in health care management.

How do you deal with the hard-to-reach areas? As an advocate myself, I know even the terrain in Nigeria is much bigger. But to travel sometimes to the hard-to-reach areas, to the inner communities, for instance, delivering HPV vaccine, or even telling them about it and then going back to deliver the vaccine is a problem for us.

How are you dealing or how are you finding that?

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh: Yes, Mongolia has a big territory and relatively small population. And as you mentioned, it’s very difficult sometimes to provide good quality services for the residents living in very rural and remote areas. And that’s why the government is trying to achieve universal health coverage, leaving no one behind, and especially for the people living in rural and remote areas.

In terms of cancer care, government tries to decentralize the health care so that people who will be diagnosed with cancer can have at least basic cancer treatment in the area they reside. So they try to provide chemotherapy at all provincial hospitals so that people wouldn’t have difficulties to travel very long distances to the capital city just for chemotherapy. But for surgery and radiotherapy, definitely it’s centralized so that patients should have to come to the capital city for the treatment.

Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu: How many radiotherapy centers do you have?

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh: In the capital city? We do have only one radiotherapy center. So only National Cancer Center is our main hospital that provides radiotherapy for the cancer patients.

Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu: Well, I think for the population, as long as it’s working properly and you can expand as the economic situation allows, but when it’s working properly, and I’m sure you have the same challenges of the technicians to maintain the equipment, the clinical oncologists and everything. So are you seeing a lot of improvement in digital technology? Like, are you able to send your x-rays and terms via the internet to radiologists abroad to see?

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh: Yes, definitely. Yeah, definitely. This is the area which is very important, especially for the countries with the big territory using internet and all these new technologies, IT technologies in the health care is very important.

So we have relatively good internet coverage and most of our province hospitals and even small rural areas are well connected to internet. That’s why doctors can send some images to the upper level health care professionals for the consultation so that they can get immediate advice and treatment.

Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu:  Well, that’s great. That’s great. Yes, I’m glad to hear that because really digital technology is the way of the future and it’s going to have a huge impact on cancer control.

Tsetsegsaikhan Batmunkh: Especially with the new artificial intelligence and digital technology in health care, we see that it will make a lot of changes in the cancer control.

Previous episodes of “United Against Cancer with HE Dr. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu”

Cancer Control in Kazakhstan: Dr. Dilyara Kaidarova