Dental Clinics, Eye & Vision Care, Medical Care

A History of Aiding Tibetan Refugees

Since the Chinese occupation of Tibet thousands of Tibetans were forced to flee their country in order to avoid religious persecution and much worse. Many of those that survived escaped to Refugee Settlements in India and Nepal. Dooley-Intermed’s commitment to Tibetan Refugees goes all the way back to the early 1960’s when the Dalai Lama personally requested Dooley-Intermed to help provide medical care to escaping Refugees. In this long-standing commitment to helping those less fortunate, Dooley-Intermed has often stepped up to help refugees from Tibet, Laos, and other disadvantaged areas of the world.

Tibetan Refugee Dental Clinic (insert photo of dental)

An American dentist, Dr. Tom Roberts, of Seattle, Washington, annually brings a team of dedicated volunteer dentists, hygenists, and assistants to the Pema Ts’al Sakya Monastic Institute, in Pokhara, Nepal, to provide a free multi-day dental clinic. This remarkable Monastic Institute is centrally located among a number of Tibetan Refugee Camps, and willingly opens its doors to organize and help bring much needed healthcare services to this Tibetan Refugees as well a local underprivileged Nepalis. The young monks serve as assistants and facilitate translation and other important duties.

The Institute houses a small rudimentary 2 chair dental facility, and the dental clinic operates under difficult “field conditions” using a generator for power and battery powered lamps for lighting. The team takes “all comers”, and treats everybody free of charge, providing a remarkably high quality of dental services, toothbrushes, and instructions in dental hygiene. Dooley-Intermed has provided two full-service Aseptico portable dental units for this most important healthcare project. Each unit contains highspeed and lowspeed handpiece controls, high volume vacuum, 3-way air/water syringe, and a self-contained water system, thus improving the lives and health of hundreds of people in need.

“Gift of Sight” Tibetan Refugees & Local Nepalis

Eye disease is prevalent throughout the 3rd world, and is often treatable at remarkably low cost. Dooley-Intermed’s “Gift of Sight” program has achieved remarkable success. Our vision initiative began with a vision testing and medical clinic at our Orphanage in Kathmandu, and recently expanded into a multi-day clinic hosting over 600 patients from numerous Tibetan Refugee settlements as well as local schools, old age homes, monasteries, and institutes. Working cooperatively with local healthcare providers and skilled surgeons performing cataract surgeries, our donors have brought the “Gift of Sight” to many people in need.

Our foundation has been able to fund hundreds of pairs of prescription eyeglasses, a complex retinal re-attachment surgery, performed at Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu, as well as numerous cataract and related eye surgeries performed by the Himalaya Eye Hospital in Pokhara, Nepal. Dooley-Intermed also funded a field portable Kowa slit lamp to enable the Himalaya Eye Hospital to conduct detailed retinal exams in remote village outreach clinics. More than 20,000 patients will be examined this year.

Tibetan Refugee Medical Clinic

Dooley-Intermed volunteer, Dr. Indira Kairam, recently hosted a General Medical Clinic for Tibetan Refugees in a cooperative project with the Pema Ts’al Sakya Monastic Institute in Pokhara Nepal, and our Kathmandu based affiliate Mission Himalaya. 438 Refugees from a number of local Refugee settlements, schools, old age homes and monasteries were examined and treated during the four-day clinic. Our Dooley-Intermed volunteer team covered all of their personal expenses including travel and lodging. Dooley-Intermed covered all costs of treatments and medicines, including a number of hospital referrals. In our Dooley-Intermed tradition, all patients were accepted and treated without any charge. A prevalent scalp disease was also identified in a local population and a treatment plan was designed and implemented including specialized medications, instruction on specific hygiene protocols to minimize cross-contamination vectors, and recommendations for ongoing nutritional supplements.