Health – Page 2 – Tshering Tobgay

Dr Chencho for Changemakers

December 6, 2009Health

Ashoka Changemakers have announced the finalists in a competition to select the three most innovative solutions that radically rethink mental health to achieve individual and community well being. And, Dr Chencho Dorji’s project, Promoting Mental Health Treatment in Traditional Bhutanese Society, has made it to the final12 entries. Dr Chencho Dorji needs your vote to make it to the winning three entries, and be recognized by Changemakers. To vote, you will first need to create an account at Changemakers. A step by step account on how to vote is available here. Dr Chencho Dorji is a senior psychiatrist at…

On the warpath

November 26, 2009Health3 Comments

Six weeks ago, the Annual Health Bulletin announced that 37% of our children are stunting, that 4.6% of them are wasting, and that 11.1% are underweight. This week, we learnt that the Right to Food Assessment Study concluded that 26.6% of our households are undernourished. That would also roughly mean that about a quarter of our population is undernourished. The study, it seems, was conducted sometime last year by FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture. And recently, the Basic Health Worker in Chali has reported that "the number of malnourished children under the age of five in Chali geog…

GAVI award

November 25, 2009Health

“I think I know why babies today hardly cry,” my father remarked as he bounced his granddaughter on his knee, ten years ago. “They hardly fall ill – they are vaccinated!” Father was right. And, GAVI, which recently honoured 15 low-income countries for excelling in child health and immunization, thinks so too. They recognized Bhutan for achieving the highest coverage of immunization. That Bhutan has achieved 95% immunization coverage is commendable. After all, we are a poor country with a scattered population, much of which lives in remote, hard-to-reach areas. Just consider the challenges involved in achieving such high…

More food for thought

October 9, 2009Health, Poverty

Sangay made three critical observations to my last entry. Most of you would already know that I try not to reply to criticism, especially those targeted at me. But Sangay’s comments are constructive. So they deserve serious consideration. First, Sangay cautioned: “… don’t just add up those figures – I am pretty sure that these are overlapping figures.” Sangay may be correct. In fact, Ken Shulman, a friend and journalist in America, also made a similar comment in my Facebook profile. But look at the numbers again: 37% of our children are stunting; 4.6% are wasting; and 11.1% are…

Traditional fertility treatment

September 10, 2009Health, Religion

I read, with interest, Kuensel’s story about Tibetan traditional infertility treatment that is said to be effective in treating 70% of women who are unable to conceive. The same article quotes the National Institute for Traditional Medicine as confirming that serkhaps (golden needle acupuncture) and traditional medicine can successfully treat infertility. But, in addition to traditional medicine, we, in Bhutan, also seek fertility from a wide range of local deities, monasteries, and festivals. Chimi Lhakhang, for example, has granted offspring to countless struggling couples, including international tourists. There are many interesting stories about Chime Lhakhang. If you know any,…

Painful solutions

September 2, 2009Health

I couldn’t sleep well last night. I shivered and shook, and tossed and turned as powerful antibiotics tried to fight off an infection and a growing fever. I’m a lot better now. But my whole body aches. I feel drowsy. And I spent most of the day in bed. The cause of my misery is my tooth. Yes, it’s the same one that I treated about three months ago. This time the dentist, Dr Pratap Tamang, a veteran, examined my tooth, ordered an x-ray and decided that, if I wanted to save the painful tooth, he would have to…

A big problem

July 31, 2009Health, Youth

We have a problem. In our last poll, 94% of you claimed to either know or think that drug abuse is already a problem in Bhutan. On the other hand, only 5% of you said that drug abuse is not a problem in our country. 1% admitted that they don’t have a clue. I suspected that substance abuse was growing, especially among out youth. But, I had no reason to think that it was already a problem. The poll results have forced me to rethink my views – that’s why I kept the poll up for so long. Next…

A problem

July 16, 2009Health

Last Friday, an MP asked the health minister, Lyonpo Zangley Dukpa, what his ministry was doing to address the growing problem of drug abuse in our country. In his response, Lyonpo Zangley informed the National Assembly that, in 2008, a total of 418 people had been arrested for drug abuse. And that, in the same year, in 2008, 132 drug dealers had been arrested and charged in our courts. Now look at the numbers. 132 drug dealers and 418 drug addicts were caught in the same year. That’s only 3.17 drug addicts caught for every drug dealer caught. And…

Impressive healthcare professionals

May 19, 2009Health, People3 Comments

I had a toothache last week. So on Friday, I went to the JDWNR hospital where Dr Kuenga Penjor, a young dentist, showed me that one of my molars had developed a big cavity beneath an old filling. He quickly removed the old filling, cleaned the cavity, and applied a new filling. My aches gave gone, and my tooth now feels as good as new. Dr Kuenga studied dentistry for six years at the Patna Dental College under a GOI scholarship. He is only 26 years old and has already decided to become an orthodontist. I'm impressed. I'm also…

Deadly numbers

January 10, 2009Health

My cousin, Lop Nob Tshering, died last week. He was a teacher at Dechenchholing MSS and had barely turned 45. He died at home, suddenly. Family and friends all agree that he died because of alcohol – he was a chronic alcoholic.No one knows how many people die at home from alcohol related problems. My cousin lived in Thimphu. And yet he died suddenly and at home. Imagine what happens outside Thimphu. Imagine the number of alcohol related deaths that go undetected. That number must surely be much higher than the number of people dying because of alcohol in…

Without alcohol there would be more happiness

January 9, 2009Health

Dorji died a few days ago. He was my classmate in Kanglung. He died of alcohol related problems.Dorji was among the 75 of us who entered Class XI in Sherubtse College, Kanglung in 1982. Another two of my classmates from this batch have also died – Devi Bhakta and Thinley Penjor. Both of them died from alcoholism.One of my classmates was recently in the ICU. He’s still recovering from alcohol related complications. At least three more classmates are chronic alcoholics. And many of us are heavy drinkers.Alcohol has already killed three of my classmates. And it threatens to kill…

A Girl with AIDS

January 4, 2009Culture, Health

My blogging efforts are paying off – yesterday I was invited to a private screening of “A Girl with a Red Sky”, a film about HIV/AIDS.The film is short. But it is powerful. Tashi Gyeltshen, the film’s writer and director, presents a series of matter-of-fact conversations between the protagonist, a nine-year old girl dying of AIDS, and Death who has come to get her.The film highlights the horrors of HIV/AIDS from a very different perspective – it shows Death shocked by the ruthlessness of the dreaded disease.“A Girl with a Red Sky” was funded by UNICEF and YDF, and…

A bigger (and better?) hospital

December 15, 2008Health

In the fall of 1974 the brand new 60-bed Thimphu Referral Hospital was inaugurated to commemorate the coronation of His Majesty the Fourth King. The hospital has served Thimphu and all of Bhutan faithfully for the last 34 years.Yesterday, Her Majesty the Queen Mother, Ashi Tshering Pem Wangchuck inaugurated the brand new 350-bed Jigme Dorji Wanchuck National Referral Hospital to commemorate the coronation of His Majesty the King and 100 years of monarchy. Our new hospital comes equipped with central heating and cooling, 8 OTs, 64 ICUs, central oxygen supply, 48 cabins, ward cubicles, digital x-ray, telemedicine facilities and…