Tibetan Delek Hospital – Jessica deJarnette, MD
Written by Jessica deJarnette, MD, PGY-2 at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Ob/Gyn Residency Program while on Global Health rotation at Tibetan Delek Hospital in Dharamsala, India in July 2017.
“Zero TB Tibet”
“Despite significant improvement in TB situation in the community, TB still continues to remain one of the serious health concerns particularly in Tibetan schools. This project could not be more timely, given the rising rate of TB and MDR-TB incidence in our schools.” –Kalon Ngodup Tsering Dept of Education
This past August I had the pleasure of spending a month volunteering in Delek Hospital, a charitable organization started in 1971 for the Tibetan refugees fleeing to India after the Chinese occupation. Being non-citizens, many of the refugees found themselves without a way to get healthcare through the public system. Delek Hospital was founded as a way to meet this gap through charitable contributions and a grant from the Central Tibetan Authority or CTA. It has grown from its humble beginnings of a small clinic to a 40-bed hospital offering comprehensive adult, pediatric and prenatal care medicine along with a tuberculosis treatment center, emergency room and radiology, dental, and laboratory departments. I was so