Turkmenistan and China Sign a Number of Bilateral Documents
Topic: Foreign Relations
20 July 2005. The official delegation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) led by Vice-Premier of the State Council of the PRC Ms. Wu Yi has wrapped up its two-day visit to Turkmenistan. A number of bilateral documents have been signed as a result of talks held in Ashgabat.

As the Ashgabat correspondent of Turkmenistan.ru reports, today, Ms Wu YI was received by Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov. The meeting that lasted more than one hour was constructive and open and confirmed the friendly and promising nature of the bilateral relations, the Vise-Primer said at an expanded meeting with participation of both sides’ delegations.

“Regardless of changes in the international climate, we regard Turkmenistan as a friendly state and a reliable partner headed by the leader who is not only a politician-strategist but also an economist, Wu Yi said in particular. We had very fruitful talks and look forward to their continuation next year during President Saparmurat Niyazov’s visit to our country.”

In turn, the President of Turkmenistan noted good dynamics of economic partnership between the two countries. Niyazov stressed that the Chinese side provide a lot of help in such spheres as the repair of old oil wells in the country’s western region, establishment of new textile productions, cooperation in transportation and communication. “We have the pragmatic and mutually beneficial cooperation. This cooperation is free of any political or other motives and, thus, it has the great future,” the Turkmen leader said.

Underlining the business nature of the Chinese delegation’s visit, Saparmurat Niyazov urged the heads of state and private enterprises in the delegation of the PRC to actively cooperate with their Turkmen colleagues to raise the partnership to a new level.

The sides also noted that the trade turnover between Turkmenistan and China increased 5 times to US 79,6 mln in six months of 2005 as compared to the same period in 2000. 90% of trade accounted for imports of equipment from China.

As of July 2005, 37 investment projects are registered in Turkmenistan with participation of Chinese companies for the total sum of 383 million USD and 160 million (US $ 19,2 mln) Chinese Yuan.

A number of bilateral documents were signed in the end of talks, including the agreements: on economic and technical cooperation between the PRC and Turkmenistan, on granting a soft credit for the oil and gas sector of Turkmenistan, on cooperation in training of specialists of the Turkmen ministries and establishments and other agreements.

Internet newspaper Turkmenistan.Ru

Treatment and Consultation Centre of Turkmenistan: Services at Highest International Level
Topic: Health, Education, Social
12 July 2005. The Treatment and Consultation Centre of Turkmenistan is the first large patient care institution established in Turkmenistan during the years of independence. In the context of the coming reforms of the national health care it was established not only as the national leading clinic but also as that of the new type providing medical services at the highest international levels. The newly independent state made solid investments to supply the firstling with the up-to-date medical equipment.

To date, the Centre includes 34 departments; 18 of them are in-patient and 16 are subsidiary (admission department, consultative polyclinics, department of functional diagnostics, laboratories, angio-X-ray department and others). The clinic is structured in accordance with the international standards. The clinic includes nine surgical departments in which the surgeons operate on almost all kinds of pathology. Over 40 operations can be performed in 11 operating rooms every day. 8,462 operations were performed last year. To imagine the scope of the clinic it is enough to say that 1,049 people work there, 279 of whom are physicians.

The Centre provides consultative and medical assistance to the people of Turkmenistan who visit the Centre on their own initiative or the patient referrals to treatment irrespective of the place of residence.

For the convenience of patients

The Burn Department has no analogy in the country. The 25-bedded department can take the patients suffering from all kinds of burns: thermal, chemical and electrical. The serious patients are transported by air from the velayats.

“In the department we created maximum comfort to provide high-quality treatment and relieve the patients from pain. First of all, we use 10 multifunctional air beds produced by the Japanese leading companies,” A. Atamuradov, Head of the Burn Department, tells. “A patient can painlessly change the body positions; it prevents a bedsore, pneumonia and other post burn complications.

A patient is transported to a Clinitron multifunctional bed (produced by Russia and France) to dry wounds. The mattress is filled with 250 kg of sand warmed up by airflow by 40 degree. To disinfect the burning wounds the patients undergo the course of quartz physiotherapy procedures and take Sakay rehabilitations baths (Japan).”

Like the magicians

The department of plastic and reconstructive surgery headed by H. Myatiev, Candidate of Medicine, senior physician, is the only one in Turkmenistan. The surgeons working at the Centre are like the magicians. They hold the certificates of authorship and inventor’s certificates including the international ones (Russia, Germany). The scope of the medical services rendered to the people of Turkmenistan is steadily expanded.

Every day the surgeons perform 4-5 operations. Most of the patients applying for medical assistance to the Centre suffer from the burning injuries. Their problems are solved by transplanting skin and post-burn contractures caused by the permanent scars that restrict the functions of the joints.

The remedial nose surgical procedure restoring the functions of the nose and improving the nose shape is one of the new operations performed at the Centre.

Development of the method of surgical correction of facial paralysis is a great achievement of the specialists of the Centre. This operation helps to restore the visual function, mimics and facial symmetry.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation and … Van Gogh

The department of cardiopulmonary resuscitation opened in 1996 is the first resuscitation department in Turkmenistan providing medical services in compliance with the best international standards. It supplemented two other resuscitation departments of the Centre – the department of anesthesia and resuscitation and the department of extracorporal hemodialysis (hemodialyser).

The necessity of placing the Centre on such a level was stipulated by the Health State Programme. Maximum of comfort is created for the patients in six cubicles. A cubicle is equipped with the centralised oxygen and air supply panel, a vacuum unit, a medical ventilation apparatus produced by the Puritan Bennet Company (the USA) and a monitor reading all vitally important indices. The apparatus is equipped with the alarm system that immediately responses to any changes beyond allowable norms. The computers save the information monitoring the course of disease during three days.

The department amazes not only with the up-to-date equipment, comfort, high quality of medical aid and services but also the interior. The walls of the department are decorated with the reproductions of Van Gogh’s pictures.

“Vincent Van Gogh suffered from cardiac insufficiency,” M. Aytmamedov, head of the department tells. “The specialists noted that chrome was a prevailing colour in Gogh’s pictures. The physicians all over the world think that this colour produced a positive effect on the patients. When the patients are watching Van Gogh’s pictures they feel the painter’s intuitive striving to find the way out of the state disease.

Maximum comfort was created for the visitors, too. They can receive necessary information in a special room. He is not allowed to the ward but he can speak with the patients via the special interphone system.

The story about three electro-optical transducers (EOT)

The President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov took part in the opening ceremony of the department of cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the Treatment and Consultation Centre. Addressing to the specialists of the Centre the President asked them what they would like to have to improve the quality of medical services. They asked for an electro-optical transducer. Thus, three electro-optical transducers were supplied to the department.

“This unit,” A. Rejepov, Head of the department tells, “takes 95 percent of irradiation projecting the sharp images on the monitor. We use the transducers for the diagnostic as well as for surgical purposes while removing gallstones and renal calculi, approximating bone fragments, removing foreign bodies and operating spinal column.

The advantages of the apparatus are that of the big memory saving the indices of the state of a patient’s health and images. By using the apparatus we can save on costs for expensive X-ray films and developing chemicals, the premises of a photolaboratory and archives.

Since 1997 the specialists of our department have been using a Philips X-ray unit for express diagnostics of trauma patients. One of the rooms is specified for dental X-ray diagnosis. The portable X-ray units allow diagnosing the bed-ridden patients in the wards.

Diagnostics is similar to exploration

The department of functional diagnostics supplied with up-to-date medical equipment has been rendering services since the opening of the Treatment and Consultation Centre of Turkmenistan. Under the supervision of J. Atdekova, the head of the department, the groups of the highly qualified physicians detect the patients’ diseases as well as define the degree of pathological process and detect the pathology of internal organs and systems on the latent stages. The functional diagnostic techniques provide the wide opportunities to take timely preventive measures.

The latest news: some days ago Sonoc-7500 ultrasound scanner produced by the Philips Company was supplied to the department. It allows conducting necessary investigation of heart and internal organs, vessels and soft tissues, endocrine glands and joints.

For the first time in Turkmenistan the MR-image room was opened at the Centre in 1997. Since that time 34,000 patients have undergone the magnetic resonance imaging procedures. This is the latest radiological technique that allows receiving the multi-projection layer-by-layer images of all organs. The patients undergo the magnetic resonance imaging procedures on the recommendation of the specialists of the Centre as well as other clinics of Turkmenistan.

Tamara GLAZUNOVA
Photo H. MAGADOV

Turkmenistan: the Golden Age

TV-4 Turkmenistan Channel
Topic: Turkmenistan Information
New TV-4 Turkmenistan channel broadcasts news and information on politics, economy and business, culture and traditions, history and modern life of Turkmenistan 24 hours a day and 7 days a week in the following languages: Turkmen, English, Russian, Farsi, French, Arab and Chinese.

Here you will find satellite, frequency and other information on this channel.

Museum of Earliest Known Wheat Culture Opens in Turkmenistan
Topic: Turkmen Traditions
15 July 2005. An inauguration ceremony of the National Museum of Ak Bugdai (white wheat) Wheat was held in the settlement of Anau, near Ashgabat, today.

As the Ashgabat correspondent of Turkmenistan.ru reports, Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov attended the ceremony which was timed to Grain Holiday to be marked Sunday in Turkmenistan. The head of state warmly congratulated the participants of the ceremony on the museum opening and fulfilling by Turkmen grain growers of the commitment to harvest 3,100 mln tons of grain.

The new museum, designed to immortalize the famous sort of Turkmen wheat “Ak Bugdai”, was built by Turkish Polimeks company. The three-storey building of the museum is 21 m high. A giant golden wheat ear framed by a two-circle wreath made of smaller ears hovers over the building. A fountain complex built in front of the face side of the museum, fitting harmoniously to the natural landscape, accomplishes the general ensemble. The museum occupies 32,000 square meters, including 18,000 square meters of the park zone. There is a conference hall for 200 people, office rooms, guest rooms and rest rooms for the museum’s employees, a storage room, telecommunication and information centers, a cafe and other special rooms on the ground floor of the museum.

The museum’s exposition is graphic evidence of deep roots of Turkmen agriculture born, according to scientists, some 10,000 years ago. The materials about the American archaeological expedition in Turkmenistan led by Professor Rafael Pampelli organized in the beginning of the last century take special place at the exposition. Findings made by Pampelli’s expedition proved that inhabitants of ancient settlements situated near modern Ashgabat were the first people in the history of mankind to grow wheat and barley and bake bread from white wheat flour. Seeds of wheat that survived in the layer of coal in the southern mound of Anau found by Rafael Pampelli’s expedition in 1904 are the main exhibit of the museum. Members of the joint Turkmen-American expedition, continuing exploration of Anau mounds, managed to find the whole range of such specimen this spring.

Demonstrating a rarity exhibit to representatives of diplomatic missions and international organizations accredited to Ashgabat, Saparmurat Niyazov noted a huge historical significance of the discovery made by archaeologists. Speaking about special services of Rafael Pampelli, the president also noted the high level of today’s Turkmen-American relations and expressed gratitude to the long-standing partners of Turkmenistan, famous “John Deer” and “Case” companies, for their harvesters and other equipment that are being successfully used on the country’s fields.

Saparmurat Niyazov also thanked all foreign guests present at the ceremony for their participation in festive events.

Internet newspaper Turkmenistan.Ru

China Starts Implementing $128.6 mln Railway Transport Contract with Turkmenistan
Topic: Economy & business
17 July 2005. The first 9 railroad soft-seated passenger cars have been sent from China to Turkmenistan, the Ashgabat correspondent of Turkmenistan.ru was told in the press service of the Chinese Embassy.

The new-style cars were produced at the Tyanshan locomotive-carriage plant of the Chinese Baiche association. This plant is to meet an order on delivering a total of 54 cars in Turkmenistan by the end of this August.

In all, it is planned that Chinese Capital-Longji Sci-Tech Co. will deliver US $ 128,6 mln worth of locomotives, carriages and equipment in Turkmenistan by December 2005.

85% of the contract’s cost will be financed at the expense of a credit provided by the supplying-company for 8 years at an annual interest rate of 3,6% with the rest 15% coming from the reserves of the State fund for development of transport and communication of Turkmenistan.

Internet newspaper Turkmenistan.Ru