Tibetan Delek Hospital

The Tibetan Delek Hospital is a hospital founded in 1971 by members of the Tibetan diaspora and their supporters and located in Dharamshala in Northern India. It serves the Tibetan residents and local community in the region, as well as tourists from around the world.[1] It practices social assistance, mainly using modern medicine.[2] In 2013, the Stop TB Partnership's selection committee chose the Delek hospital as the winner of that year's Kochon Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes persons and institutions who have made major contributions to the fight against tuberculosis.[3]. However, the winner must be approved by the director-general World Health Organization (WHO) Margaret Chan at the time), and the WHO nullified the choice, because the hospital has ties to the Central Tibetan Administration, which considers itself the Tibetan government-in-exile, and ”The WHO is not able to recognize any entity that is not in turn recognized as a legal authority by the UN,” according to a spokesman for the WHO[3] and a statement published in the medical journal The Lancet.[4] However, China had also objected to the selection,[3][5] and the Tibetan exile community believed that their pressure was responsible for the override.[5]

Tibetan Delek Hospital
Geography
LocationGangchen Kyishong
176215 Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India
Coordinates32.222°N 76.3172°E / 32.222; 76.3172
Services
Beds45
History
Opened1971
Links
Website

History

Delek Hospital was built through donations and provides care at a low cost to patients, while taking care of low-income patients.

Friends of Tibetan Delek Hospital Backup Generator installed August 2007 with Dr Zorba Pastor on the right

It was founded in 1971 by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to give modern medicine to Tibetan refugees and the Indian community living in Dharamsala, a city of Northern India.

In June 2008, the Delek hospital began a program to improve the control of tuberculosis in the Tibetan diaspora, supported by the Johns Hopkins University with the participation of Dr. Zorba Paster and Dr. Richard Chaisson,[6] and the Associazione Italiana per la Solidarietà fra i Popoli (AISPO).[7]

Sign for Directly Observed Treatment (DOTS) for TB in Dharamsala, India on 25 May 2008
New donated Tibetan Delek Hospital X-ray film processor on 25 May 2008

The Rotary Club of Sunshine, based in Australia, participates in the financing of the program of tuberculosis control for Tibetan refugees.[8]

Location

It lies between Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, near the Men-Tsee-Khang — a location conducive to collaboration between these medicines.

Organization

The hospital includes:

  • 45 beds, in three services which one is for tuberculosis patients.
  • a home for the elderly
  • a delivery room
  • a bioassay laboratory
  • a pharmacy
  • equipment: an endoscopy room, a medical x-ray machine, a medical ultrasound device (a radiologist is present 2 days of the week)
  • a surgery room using the services of volunteer surgeons a few weeks in the year.

The hospital staff is composed of Tibetans, speak Tibetan, Hindi, and English, includes:

  • 4 permanent doctors
  • a biologist
  • a pharmacist
  • 2 dentists
  • nurses
  • administrators
  • cooks for patients

The hospital is equipped with a conference room for meetings of hospital staff and for hosting outside conferences (including ministers of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and traditional Tibetan medicine).

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See also

Notes
  1. Oren Family, Volunteering in India Archived 29 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine, IsraAid
  2. Bertrand Odelys, Dharamsala, Chroniques tibétaines, Albin Michel, 2003, ISBN 2226142592, p 140
  3. Betsy McKay, TB Prize Selection Gets Caught in Politics, Wall Street Journal, 26 novembre 2013
  4. Feig, Christy (8 March 2014). "WHO disapproves Kochon prize for Tibetan TB Programme – WHO's reply". The Lancet. 383 (9920): 868–9. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60442-6. PMID 24607098.
  5. (in English) Richard Finney, Tibetan Groups Petition WHO for Hospital Award Radio Free Asia, 2013-12-30
  6. Delek Hospital details Plan to Combat TB in the Tibetan Community
  7. Health Department holds conference to control TB in Tibetan community, 11 October 2010
  8. The Rotarian sept. 2005, p 26 "[…] the Rotary Club of Sunshine, Australia, funds a tuberculosis control program for Tibetan refugees at Delek Hospital in Dharamsala, India."

References
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