Health Care 

In the early years of the diaspora, thousands of Tibetan refugees succumbed to illness and disease, mostly due to the radical change in climate from Tibet to the Indian subcontinent, exposure to a host of viruses and bacteria unknown on the Tibetan plateau, exhaustion from roadwork, which was the main source of survival at the time, and psychological trauma.   

As the settlement system evolved, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) concerned itself with providing adequate health care and sanitation to all the refugees.  In 1981 the Department of Health was established to manage and finance health care centers and plan a comprehensive health care system that today comprises seven hospitals, five Primary Health Centers, forty seven clinics, two mobile clinics—one covering seven remote areas in Ladakh and one in Doon Valley—and a School for 50 children with special needs in Dehradun.  Many of these facilities serve the local Indian population as well as Tibetan settlers. 

288 doctors, executive secretaries, nurses, health workers and other health-related staff members provide primary care; public health programs aimed at disease prevention, healthier lifestyles and a clean environment; and gathering and analysis of health data to continually improve the system.  The Department of Health devotes resources to address issues of particular concern to the refugee population such as TB, maternal and child health, substance abuse, and the disabled.  While the Tibetan health care system lacks the facilities to provide emergency medical services, financial assistance is provided to impoverished Tibetans who are referred to area hospitals for surgeries and advanced care.  

Traditional Tibetan medicine has been preserved in exile by the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute, headquartered in Dharamsala with 47 branch clinics in India and Nepal and other traditional medical schools.  The Department of Health has been working toward an integrative approach to health care that utilizes the two systems of traditional Tibetan medicine and allopathic medicine.  

While the Department of Health continues to struggle with inadequate resources to meet all of the refugees’ needs, it has managed to establish a distinctive model for refugee health care over a wide geographical area.