Testimonials
“The special thing about Delek is the culture. I call it Delek Culture. Delek is a very special place, but I don’t think it’s special only because of a few people…like because of the doctors, because of administration, because of sponsors. I think the culture of the hospital is special even without doctors—the nurses and staff are so dedicated, so compassionate. They will try their best to give you not only the medical care—they also give psychosocial, emotional, every possible care. Some of the patients have no attendant. No one in and around Dharamsala, so nurses will cook for them. If someone is not able to take solid food, they will make porridge. It is not asked by someone or told by someone or discussed during morning rounds. It is spontaneous.”
Dasel
Doctor
"I stayed here for a couple days. At night I walk around, and I see a lot of sick people here. There is a lot of sickness in the world these days. When I see people that are sick and suffering, I don’t really remember my own sickness. When I was sitting outside I was praying, but not once did I pray for my sickness to get better. I instead prayed for everybody here, for them to get better and for them to get better soon. Those were my prayers. What we really need are good doctors and good nurses and good health care workers."
Anonymous
Monk
“I think what’s really interesting is how early [the Tuberculosis Program] started when they were a refugee community. The hospital started in 1970 which was 10 years after they left Tibet. I think what’s been quite surprising to me is how quickly they did get organized and start setting things up, the way that they kind of saw what the priorities were, you know, so they knew they had a huge problem with TB and they knew that their community was very dispersed and they did not have too many staff. To me what’s interesting is how they were able to see the problem and how they were able to see different parts of the problem. They kind of thought it all out and tackled each problem.”
Mary Garvey
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“At first, I had some fever and sweating at night. Sometimes I had a cough. I went to a government hospital for a check-up, and they gave me 5 months of Tuberculosis (TB) treatment. During that time, I had a pain over my left hip. One night, after waking up, I was not able to get up. I could not walk. The pain had gotten even worse. So then I heard about Delek Hospital, and that here, they treat TB well, so I came here.”
Anonymous
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“If you are in medicine, you should be dealing with the patients right. A human-to-human connection should be there. So no matter what you are doing, whether you’re a nurse or a doctor or a lab tech, just be good to the patients, you know, have a sense of humanity. If there’s a problem, deal with them. Patients come here because they have some sort of suffering. If we have that in our minds, why patients come here, we should show them good gestures, approach them, be the first to initiate and make them comfortable. So when they come to the hospital they will say, “this hospital is very nice because everyone here is very caring, and they do so much.”
Nangsel
Nurse
“The nurses who worked the oncology ward in Ottawa, the nurses here, it’s the same compassion—that’s what I experience. Interestingly, I eventually developed friendships with my oncologists in Ottawa and I’ve known them for years now. I have a feeling that doctors at Delek—I don’t know this empirically—don’t have a problem, don’t feel the need to have that barrier that preserves their objectivity. That they’re more willing to enter the whole patient experience with empathy as well as maintaining objectivity. This is maybe BS, but this is my own intuitive appreciation between western medicine and this hospital.”
Anonymous
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"So I think every day when we are interacting with people we try, first of all, not to segregate people, by race, culture, whatever. I think being Tibetan, and being Buddhist, you know, we have a lot of daily practice of being compassionate. Being patient with the patients, Delek’s setup kind of puts those principles into practice—not just meditation and doing the circumambulations, doing the mantras. I think we are physically doing and acting out compassion through our work and service. I’ve seen nurses who go out on a line to aid a patient, not just as a nurse but as a caregiver, a true caregiver. I’ve seen nurses bring food for patients form their home. That kind of thing rubs off on you—it makes you want to do something more than just being a doctor and prescribing medicines. Not everything about the cure, you know. It’s about healing and aiding."