The Kochi Wellbeing Camp: An Overview
The speech given by Dr Dorjee Rapten Neshar, Chief Medical Officer of the Bangalore Branch of Men-Tsee-Khang, Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute during the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Kochi on November 25, 2012.

Dr Dorjee Rapten Neshar, Chief Medical Officer of Men-Tsee-Khang, Bangalore presents an overview of Kochi medical camps to His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet. HH Dalai Lama spoke to a gathering of 'Friends of Tibet' members and 'Wellbeing' beneficiaries at the Holiday Inn Cochin on November 25, 2012. His Holiness spoke about "The Art of Happiness" at a function organised by the 'Friends of Tibet Foundation for the Wellbeing'.

The Wellbeing camp in Kochi, Kerala was started September 5, 2010 with one doctor and one medicine dispenser from Bangalore-based Tibetan Medical Centre. It began with the strong initiative from Friends of Tibet based in Kochi. The first camp at Fort Kochi started with mere 35 patients which, over the last two years and three months, have increased up to approximately 2,000 registered patients. Currently, we have two Tibetan doctors and three medical staffs catering to the service of Tibetan Medicine for three and half days every month to an average of 250 patients. In fact, the large majority of happy looking crowd here in today's gathering are our patients in the Wellbeing camp receiving Tibetan Medicine. Many of them come from different parts of Kerala and neighboring states to the Wellbeing camp at Kochi.

Kerala, the state known popularly as "God's Own Country" with rich heritage and tradition, is also a home to India's oldest traditional medical system -Ayurveda. Considering this fact, we were initially bit doubtful over the response of Kerala patients to the service of Traditional Tibetan Medical system known as Sowa Rigpa. But today, Your Holiness, I stand here to mention with all my humility that significant portion of the people of Kerala has taken the service of Tibetan Medicine very seriously and, the people from all walks of life here including the medical doctors to the village laborers have accepted its healing value very close to their chest. The most encouraging point is that our growing service and people's admiration for the Tibetan Medicine was achieved mainly through patient to patient and people to people contact only. It is neither through any means of expansive advertisement nor through any systematic media coverage.

It is no doubt that the Friends of Tibet with its small team of dedicated members has played the pivotal role in bringing the service of Tibetan Medicine here in Kerala. They have been very kind and highly motivated in organising everything from receiving our medical team with our back breaking heavy luggage of medicine and medicinal products at the railway station to the arrangement of food, accommodation, registration, online and offline appointments, receiving and placing the patients before their doctors, providing translation, and lending their helping hands where ever necessary and, at times, taking the burden of listening and clarifying patients doubt over the medication and its healing conditions. And, all this above their cherished goal of introducing the tradition and culture of Tibet; showcasing the just cause of Tibet and Tibetan people and their right to total freedom by displaying all the available space the historical facts and figures, distributing soul searching documents and pamphlets on Tibet issue. The whole exercise was carried out by few of its dedicated members from morning 7am to 8pm for over 3 and half days on a monthly basis. Fortunately, we have now several old and new volunteers from our growing number of patients and well wishers all working whole heartedly for the greater cause of suffering patients and disease alleviation. This is why the camp is very aptly being called as a Wellbeing camp in the context of its much larger issue than merely giving and taking medicine.

True to the Tibetan Medicine's description of disease probability of yul, dus, zes-chod, goms pa which are respectively known as place, season, food, life style, and habits, This part of Kerala being one of the tropical south Indian hot land area with hot weather prevailing in most of the season save for its abundant rainfall, food predominantly spicy, oily and non-vegetarian food items with a large section of the people habituated to alcoholic drinks makes it a suitable candidate for the diseases like Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease all covering up to almost 60% of our patient attendance, followed by arthritis, lungs and respiratory disease, gastro-intestinal disease, liver and so on. Besides, many chronic debilitating diseases of nervous system and cancer cases have been reported at our Wellbeing camp. To be precise, though we do not claim to have cured all those diseases mentioned above, we have been able to make a remarkable improvement in their quality health conditions in majority of the cases. Consequently, it is quite encouraging to note that many patients of above mentioned chronic diseases now depend only on Tibetan medicine, but many still continue to take the modern drugs in complementary with Tibetan Medicine. Our anti-diabetic tea, Trulthang, and Sorig massage oil were among the list of herbal products which has the highest demand and best ratings from our patients. More so, several of the patients who were totally bed-ridden earlier with total immobility and in a state of morbid conditions; some from birth and some from serious accidental conditions and brain strokes, were now able to enjoy significant changes in their health conditions thus gaining some new meaning in their otherwise vegetative state of life. We could certainly do much more to help such debilitating patients with our physical therapies too, but because of the limitations of infrastructural facilities and shortage of medical staffs and time factor, we have not been able to practice them to the desired level.

Though compared to Bangalore and Chennai, we do not have many number of cancer patients in Kerala, but so far, we have treated over 55 patients out of which Breast Cancer tops the list followed by Lung, colorectal cancer, stomach and Liver cancer, oral cancer, cervical and endometrial cancer. To our encouragement, large majority of the cancer patients who have availed the service of our Wellbeing camp; their children and family members have reported very positive effects of Tibetan Medicine and, in fact, many of them have done very well with our medications. With the Wellbeing camp becoming more successful, we also have serious request from several neighboring towns to establish similar health camps in their respective town, but because of the shortage of doctors and staff members, it is proving very tedious for the present team members to visit other places.

Besides the Wellbeing camp, Friends of Tibet have also arranged some evening talks on Tibetan Medicine and its practical values to day today lives. Last year in September, we have marked the 1st anniversary of Wellbeing camp with the visit of mobile exhibition team from Men-Tsee-Khang to highlight the 50th Anniversary of Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institution. We also had some fruitful dialogue between our doctors from Men-Tsee-Khang, Bangalore and doctors from the Nagarjuna Ayurvedic Institute located at Kalady, birthplace of Aadi Sankara. We look forward to have more such healthy dialogue and interactions.

At the conclusion, my short report will not be a complete one if I fail to mention the healing and holistic environment of Ashirbhavan and its Director "Reverent Father Joseph Thannikkottu" for giving us the wonderful space for conducting the Wellbeing camp. There kind understanding and open hearted attitude has greatly contributed to the flow of positive energy during the healing service of Wellbeing camp.

Thank you, thank you your Holiness and thank you all for your kind attention.

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