The Department of Health, Central Tibetan Administration organized a series of public health workshops and a HIV support group meeting at Dharamsala in the month of March till beginning of April, 2015. These workshops were organized to mainly strengthen the capacity of the health staffs in areas of disease prevention, health promotion and clinical management in addition to better understand the health needs of the community members including people living with HIV AIDS.
The Department of Health, Central Tibetan Administration conducted a week long comprehensive public health workshop for the Tibetan nurses, community health workers and doctors from March 9 to March 15, 2015 at Dharamsala. A total of about 56 health staffs comprising of community health workers, doctors and nurses from DOH affiliated health centers and hospitals, Delek Hospital, schools and monasteries attended this workshop. Sikyong Dr Lobsang Senge graced the inaugural ceremony of the workshop and provided the keynote address to the participants. The workshop included one day of HIS paper based training, two days of Health Education and communication training, one day of TB training and one day of Hepatitis B clinical management training. The resource persons included a clinical team from Delek Hospital lead by Dr Rangjung Dolma, Dr Lobsang Tsering, Dr Tenzin Yeshi from MentseeKhang, Geshe Pema Dorjee and relevant public health coordinators of the health department.
To address the challenges faced by the health staffs in clinical management of Hepatitis B, Department of Health coordinated a specialized one day training titled- “Hepatitis B clinical management training: a case based approach” with the technical guidance of Dr Tsetan Dorjee la on 14th March as part of the comprehensive public health workshop. Such training has been organized for the first time within the Tibetan community. The resource persons include Dr. Tsetan Dorjee from Delek Hospital, Dr RK Dhiman and Dr A Duseja from PGI Chandigarh, Dr Rana Singh from Tanda Medical College and Hospital, Dr Pankaj Puri from Apollo Hospital, New Delhi and Dr AC Anand from Army Hospital, Research and Referral Division, New Delhi. In addition to various sessions facilitated by these resource persons regarding clinical management of Hepatitis B, a panel discussion was carried out among the resource persons and Health Kalon Dr Tsering Wangchuk la titled “Planning a hepatitis B control strategy for the entire Tibetan community in India and Nepal”.
As an important initiative by the health department to facilitate empowerment about health issues among the newly arrived Tibetan refugee women, a two day workshop titled “Basic healthcare workshop for newly arrived women from Tibet” was conducted from March 28 to 29 among 33 female participants from Tibetan Transit School, Dharamsala. The topics include Women’s Health (gyaenocological disorders), Diet and Behaviors for Tibetan Women from the perspective of the Tibetan medicine, Tuberculosis, Cancers, STDs and General Hygiene, HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B. These sessions were coordinated by four public health staffs of the health department along with Dr. Rigzin Sangmo from MentseeKhang and Dr. Tashi Namgyal, a newly appointed doctor at a DOH affiliated hospital.
A three day “HIV Support group meeting and workshop” was conducted at Dharamsala from March 29 to 31 which was attended by 19 participants which included 8 HIV AIDS staffs and 11 HIV positive people. The topics include Yoga for healthy living, Basics of HIV AIDS, Nutritional requirements for people living HIV and AIDS, The guidelines of the DOH’s HIV AIDS Program, Understanding NACO guidelines of the Indian government, Understanding HIV AIDS from the perspective of Traditional Tibetan medicine, Coping with HIV and AIDS through Buddhism and group discussion. In addition to overall coordination and facilitating a session by the concerned program coordinator, the external resource persons include – Dr.Surender Nikhil Gupta (ICTC Head, Zonal Hospital, Kangra District), Dr. Yeshi Khando (Mentseekhang), – Geshe Lobsang Dawa (Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, and Gen Chodar la (Yoga Instructor).
A dental training was organized by the health department from March 31 to 2nd April at Tibetan Primary Health Center, Bir in collaboration with the Taiwan Dental association, Cathy’s hospital and health Co-op organization in Taiwan. The participants included 14 Chws, Nurses and dental therapist including 6 school nurses among them. The training covered preventive dental care, which included health education on proper brushing and dental care, clinical aspects of scaling and practical sessions on scaling procedure. A similar dental training was organized last year.