Nursing in Mongolia

BonnieSc · Sep 9, 2015

I haven't been to Mongolia, but I have done volunteer and paid nursing in other countries. Unless I had my own contacts, I would not go anywhere independently. It is too hard to know what is really needed, to be sure you are actually offering something of value and that is not detrimental to what is going on in the country. (People with the best intentions can do harm instead of good. As an example, some people from North America visited my current country in Africa to teach CPR--but for one thing, we have local people who can teach CPR, and for another, they taught lay CPR while we teach BLS, so it just confused people.) Some organizations where you pay your own way are totally legitimate and others are a scam, to varying degrees. Paying your own expenses should really be expected in most cases, except maybe for lodging. No developing country can afford to pay for foreign nurses/doctors to come at no expense. A certain amount to keep a program running (actual operating costs) is also a fine thing to pay. But there are also "volunteer" organizations that are basically for-profit, with much of the fee you pay going into the operator's pocket. You might as well be going on safari in that case. It's also worth checking into whether the main purpose is medical care (or fundraising--which, again, is okay depending on who's getting the money and what your own goals are) or whether the main purpose is religious conversion. There are organizations that offer free medical care to the local people only to get bodies in the church for preaching. A faith-based organization is fine if that's a person's thing, faith-based organizations have done a lot of good, but I don't like those where the healthcare is secondary.

I hope that is helpful, even though I know you only asked about Mongolia. Good luck.