A Chinese medical expert (C) examines a child in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, June 25, 2019. A Chinese medical team started a four-day mission here on Tuesday to examine congenital heart disease (CHD)-affected Mongolian children and screen out some 100 most urgent cases for future free treatment in China. (Xinhua/Suriya)
ULAN BATOR, June 25 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese medical team started a four-day mission here on Tuesday to examine congenital heart disease (CHD)-affected Mongolian children and screen out some 100 most urgent cases for future free treatment in China.
The mission is part of an overseas humanitarian aid program carried out by the Chinese Red Cross Foundation (CRCF) along the Belt and Road.
"At the request of the Mongolian side, we are here to launch the second phase of the humanitarian aid program," Liu Jingjing, project manager of the CRCF, told Xinhua.
"Under this phase, we are planning to select another 100 Mongolian children with CHD and provide them with free heart surgeries in Hohhot, capital of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and in Wuxi, an eastern Chinese city," Liu said.
Under the first phase of the program implemented in the 2017-2018 period, a total of 100 Mongolian children aged 0-14 who were suffering from CHD had received free surgeries in Beijing and Hohhot.
"My wife and I arrived here Monday from the western Mongolian province of Govi-Altai with our six-month-old son who is suffering from congenital heart disease. Our son was diagnosed with ventricular septal defect three months ago," Tumendemberel Purevdash, father of the boy, told Xinhua.
"I hope that my son will be selected to receive free surgery in China," he said.
As of 2017, there were some 2,000 registered children cases of CHD in Mongolia, according to the Mongolian Red Cross Society.
