Traditional Medicine & Health care in Bhutan

The Institute of Traditional Medicine Services is based in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, located on a hilltop above the Traditional Arts Center and the National Library. The Institute supplies traditional medicines and medical services, trains doctors, and conducts research on traditional medicinal plants to identify the ingredients and develop new products.

The Institute has a library dating back to around 1616, when Tibetan Buddhism was introduced to Bhutan. The books and recipes were collected from monasteries where scholars had preserved the medical lore.

The institute distributes traditional medicines produced in its laboratories from minerals, animal parts, precious metals, gems and plants. Generally the patient should abstain from meat and alcohols during the medical course.Over 40,000 patients are treated annually by the institute’s hospital in Thimphu. Nationwide, traditional medicine units treat over 100,000 patients a year.

The health care development accelerated in the early 1960s with the establishment of the Department of Public Health and the opening of new hospitals and dispensaries throughout the country. By the early 1990s, health care was provided through twenty-nine general hospitals (including five leprosy hospitals, three army hospitals, and one mobile hospital), forty-six dispensaries, sixty-seven basic health units, four indigenous-medicine dispensaries, and fifteen malaria eradication centers. The major hospitals were the Jigme Dorji National Referral Hospital in Thimphu, and other hospitals in Gelegphug, and Trashigang. Hospital beds in 1988 totaled 932. There was a severe shortage of health-care personnel with official statistics reporting only 142 physicians and 678 paramedics, about one health-care professional for every 2,000 people, or only one physician for almost 10,000 people. Training for health-care assistants, nurses’ aides, midwives, and primary health-care workers was provided at the Royal Institute of Health Sciences, associated with Thimphu General Hospital, which was established in 1974. Graduates of the school were the core of the national public health system and helped staff the primary care basic health units throughout the country. Additional health-care workers were recruited from among volunteers in villages to supplement primary health care.The Institute of Traditional Medicine Services supports indigenous medical centers associated with the district hospitals. Today Bhutan remains self equipped to take hold of its country’s health care.