Tibetan Medical Centre.

Chodrak Monastery has a small medical centre that is run by three resident lamas who practise traditional Tibetan medicine. The monks and Chodrak residents have access to traditional medical treatment, which mainly consists of herbal remedies, meditation and spiritual healing. The lamas rely on pulse diagnosis as their main diagnostic tool. There is also a small pharmacy that dispenses Tibetan medicine.

The Chodrak Monastery Medical Centre is of the utmost importance to the residents of Chodrak because of the crisis in medical treatment for the residents of remote areas of Kham. This crisis has been succinctly describes by a Western volunteer health worker in eastern Tibet:

‘The remote clinics have never been able to provide more than the most basic treatment, but that treatment was at least free in the early Communist decades when they were set up. No more: as china’s public services struggle to clear long standing debts, the cost of health care is spiralling. City entrepreneurs have money, state employees have some basic health insurance. Tibetan farmers and nomads don’t, and untold numbers die each year from curable diseases.
Even for those who can afford treatment, rural clinics are ill-equipped to treat serious disease or injury. A trip to the nearest hospital may involve one or more days’ travel on rough roads in areas poorly served by public transport. To get better treatment in Chengdu, the provincial capital, would add several more days on the road and could cost many times the average rural Tibetan family’s annual income. It’s not even an option.’

Tibetan people live in tough conditions in a predominantly cold climate at high altitude, with limited food resources. The main health problems include arthritis, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes which largely remain undetected die to lack of modern diagnostic tools and health screening programmes. The medical workers at Chodrak Monastery provide treatment to the residents of Chodrak at heavily subsidised rates, thus offering a means of alleviating disease that they could not otherwise afford. Without the monastery’s subsidies, the majority of people would be forced to forego any medical treatment