Published on: April 18, 2017

Dr M. R. Rajagopal, Chairman of Pallium India, writes:

Some people make you feel so humbled! Dr Odontuya Devaasuren is one such.

Thanks to a leadership development course conducted by Dr Frank Ferris and team in San Diego, California, and Columbus, Ohio, I had the good fortune to spend a few weeks with and to make friends with this amazing source of energy.

While a medical student in Leningrad, she had to witness her father suffering from lung cancer back in Mongolia. Later, her mother-in-law also died in suffering from liver cancer.

But this exceptional woman made great good come out of her father’s and mother-in-law’s suffering. She brought palliative care to Mongolia. She worked hard, forcefully and persistently, to bring in changes in government policies. Some policies were downright crazy. In a country where food had to be rationed, the ration included two bottles of vodka every time!

But Odontuya was so successful in changing policies and in influencing medical education that in 2015, Mongolia came 28th among 80 countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Quality of Death Index” (though it is only a low-middle income country, coming 124th among world nations in gross national income). Compare that with India, another low-middle income country, listed as 67th out of 80!

Read this article by Andrew North, friends, and join me in saluting the compassionate fighting angel, Odontuya Devaasuren.