Tibetan hospital combines centuries-old medicine with modern care

Nearly 110 years after its founding, the Tibetan Hospital of the Xizang autonomous region is using modern equipment and telemedicine alongside centuries-old practices to treat chronic illnesses common at high altitudes.

The hospital was founded in Lhasa in 1916 as the Men-Tsee-Khang, an institution teaching Tibetan medicine and astronomical calculation. It became the regional Tibetan hospital in 1980 and now has 700 beds and more than 900 staff. It records more than 530,000 outpatient and emergency visits a year.

Tsering, the hospital's president, said many patients had chronic conditions affecting their cardiovascular and respiratory systems, as well as their joints.

"Many parts of Lhasa and Xizang are at high altitude, so plateau-related illnesses account for a large proportion of the patients we treat," he said. "Tibetan medicine is suited to the plateau and has been tested in practice here for more than a millennium."

Doctors primarily use Sowa Rigpa, the traditional Tibetan medical system. Its foundational work, the Four Treatises of Tibetan Medicine, was compiled between the eighth and 12th centuries and added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme in 2023. The medical knowledge was also illustrated through a series of 80 thangkas (Tibetan religious paintings), the president said.