|
|
Aug. 26, 2005
Surrounded by beauty in Yushu
Jewish doctors join a western medical team to provide services
in a remote Tibetan village .
DR. ROMAN ELINSON
In September, 2004, a volunteer medical mission, led by Dr. Isaac
Sobol, travelled to the Tibetan Plateau to set up a month-long free
clinic for the people of Yushu and its surrounding villages. This
was the seventh such mission conducted on behalf of Rokpa International,
an organization that runs humanitarian aid projects throughout Tibet.
The team was comprised of two family doctors, a surgeon, a physiotherapist,
an optometrist, and myself – a family practice resident. There
was also an ancillary team of four volunteers, who ran the pharmacy,
did triage, worked security and performed numerous other duties
vital to the functioning of the clinic.
Once an autonomous, culturally rich civilization, Tibet has been
under forcible Chinese occupation for the last half-century. The
Chinese presence has been devastating to Tibetan society. The Tibetan
language has been suppressed, religious practice outlawed, political
and spiritual leaders exiled, temples destroyed, the environment
decimated and access to basic healthcare denied. To date, an estimated
one and a half million Tibetans have died as a direct result of
the occupation. The remaining population of six million Tibetans
is under intense pressure to assimilate as millions of Chinese immigrants,
drawn by government incentives, settle their land. Marginalized
by the juggernaut of Chinese industrialism, the continued existence
of Tibetan society is now seriously in question.
The exile of Tibetan leaders and exodus of thousands of refugees
has spawned a sizeable Tibetan diaspora with roots in India, Europe
and North America. From this diaspora, individuals such as the Dalai
Lama expound Tibetan ideas and garner political and humanitarian
support from the international community. One such individual is
Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche – a meditation master and Tibetan
doctor. Exiled from Tibet in 1959, Akong Rinpoche moved to Scotland
and founded Samye-Ling, the first Tibetan meditation centre in Europe.
With financial support from Lea Wyler, a Swiss actress and philanthropist,
he went on to found Rokpa International, which currently runs more
than 100 relief projects in Tibet, Nepal and Zimbabwe and has branches
in 18 countries.
Dr. Isaac Sobol, born into a Russian Jewish family in Newark, N.J.,
met Akong Rinpoche in the 1960s and spent five years studying Tibetan
Buddhism and meditation at Samye-Ling. Committed to the Tibetan
cause, Sobol has organized and led the Rokpa medical mission every
September for the past seven years. The rest of the year, he works
as the chief medical officer for Nunavut Territory.
Yushu is on the Tibetan plateau, in the northeastern Tibetan province
of Amdo (now the Chinese province of Qinghai). The plateau is vast
and desolate – a rugged frontier settled largely by nomadic
yak herders and Chinese laborers. The town itself is a poster image
for China’s agenda of Tibetan modernization. Once a modest
village, Yushu has rapidly grown into a bustling commercial hub
of more than 20,000 people. The main street is a noisy, dusty jam
of trucks, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, yaks, vendors, beggars and monks;
while on the outskirts of town, Tibetans still live in simple adobe
huts, herding livestock and giving birth on beds of yak dung ashes.
The clinic was set up on the edge of town in a school for orphaned
Tibetan children – another Rokpa International project. Our
supplies, which had been smuggled through China in seven enormous
duffel bags, consisted of medications and vitamins donated by pharmaceutical
companies, as well as canes, crutches and leftovers from the previous
year. Every morning, hundreds of Tibetans would crowd the gates,
vying for a spot in the clinic that day. Some had travelled for
days from far-away villages and many had never seen a doctor in
their lives.
The severity of illness was something that is rarely seen in the
West. Even with the help of translators, cultural differences made
relating to patients a challenge. Concepts that involved time, such
as frequency or duration, were difficult to convey. Many patients
didn’t even know their own age. Over the course of the month,
we managed to see and treat nearly 1,200 people but, because of
limited time and resources, many more had to be turned away. One
thing that struck me was the incredible resilience that people displayed
in the face of crippling disease. I also came away with a new appreciation
of our own health-care system. Though we may complain about waiting
times and overcrowding, we should consider ourselves extremely lucky
that we have what we have.
I’d like to believe that our work in Yushu served the people
well. I’m not sure how the others felt about the trip, but
I left Yushu with mixed feelings. Even though we worked hard and
saw a good number of people, many of them went away with just a
month’s supply of Tylenol and nothing more, which seems trivial
considering the burden of disease. Granted, even Tylenol was more
than what they otherwise had, but I couldn’t help but wonder
about the relative futility of our efforts. When I asked Sobol about
his thoughts on this, he admitted that at one point he felt similar,
until he consulted Akong Rinpoche on the matter. Akong sympathized
with Sobol but said something worth considering. He said that although
what we do may seem inconsequential to us, the mere act of coming
to Yushu from so far away sends the Tibetan people a strong message
– that somebody cares about their lives; that they have not
been forgotten by the world.
For more information about Rokpa International, please visit www.rokpa.org.
To see more of Roman Elinson’s photography, go to www.elinson.photosite.com.
Roman Elinson is a B.C. physician and photographer.
^TOP
|
|
