Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center
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2007 Annual Report
By Board of Directors - 2007 Annual Report, August 13, 2008 03:38 PM
We are pleased to provide you with this 2007 Annual Report and highlight some of our projects that are nearing completion and are coming to fruition in 2008. We hope that as you read our 2007 Annual Report, the work of our projects and people we serve will come alive.
On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Tibetan children and their families, we want to express our deep sense of gratitude for the continued financial support that creates opportunities for hope.
Thank you for helping us pave the way for a healthier and better educated Tibet.
Attachments:
Birth Center, Project Update, May 2008
By Tibetan Healing Fund, Board of Directors - Board Member, May 07, 2008 05:31 PM
Tibet has one of the highest rates of maternal and child mortality and morbidity in the world; therefore improving women and children’s health is critical to improve the health situation in Tibetan society overall. The Tibetan Healing Fund carries on its mission to respond with comprehensive health projects to improve the health conditions in rural Tibetan communities. The Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center (“Birth Center”) is the major component of such interventions.
The Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center (birth center) will provide women and children in rural Tibetan villages a place for safe, affordable, linguistically and culturally appropriate health services and health education. The center will serve as a training facility for community midwives and health educators and a resource center for women to learn about personal and family health and nutrition.
Establishing the first birthing center in Rebkong County (Malho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province) will improve and strengthen the public health infrastructure at the county level as well as provide an opportunity for advancing the health care delivery system, particularly health care for reproductive women and their children.
This project is a comprehensive, multilevel health program, which deals with the county level to outreach and educate the rural village communities and individuals at the family level. The Rebkong Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center is designed based on the concepts of US public health and community oriented primary care.
During the spring of 2008, we restarted construction after a long winter. The plan and preparation of the Birth Center took three years, and the building construction started in the fall of 2006. This center will be completely built by local people using regional resources. THF projected having the construction completed by December 2007, but we need to move this date to 2008. Once the building construction is completed, the inside walls are painted, and the center is equipped with the medical equipment, supplies and furniture, the Birth Center will be opened.
It is the first comprehensive birthing center in rural Tibet. The work process is managed by Tibetan Healing Fund’s local health project advisors and the Birth Center’s Management Committee. The center is managed by local Tibetans and it will be intergraded into the Rebkong County Health System in order to sustain its long-term service for the region.
The approximate total budget for construction and medical supplies and equipment is $70,000 (US dollars), which is raised by Tibetan Healing Fund in the USA. The Birth Center could not have been conceived or begun without the donations of time, resources, and medical equipment from local Tibetan and Chinese friends as well as the financial support of our donors.
The Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center (“Birth Center”) is established to be the cornerstone of health care for women and children in the Rebkong health care system. The following sections provide more details.
Goals and Objectives:
The main goal of the Birth Center is to provide access to quality, safe, affordable, and linguistically and culturally appropriate health services. This includes general maternal and child health care, natural delivery, and health education to local Tibetans. The center will also serve as a training facility for community midwives and health educators, and as a resource center for women and their families to learn about health related issues in order to reduce mortality and morbidity.
The goal will be accomplished by:
A.Health Services
• Increasing access to culturally and linguistically appropriate health care services for rural Tibetan women and newborns;
• Increasing the number of safe deliveries;
• Increasing the number of rural women receiving pre-natal, post-natal, and neonatal care;
• Decreasing risk of death and disability from hemorrhage, eclampsia, obstructed labor and infection;
• Providing family planning services;
• Providing delivery kits for safe home births;
• Increasing access to essential drugs of Tibetan and western medicine;
• Providing management for complications and safe transport for emergencies related to pregnancy and childbirth.
B.Health Education
• Increasing rural women’s and their husband’s knowledge of physiology, women's health, family heath, hygiene, nutrition, infectious disease such as HIV/AIDS and TB, and disease prevention.
C. Training Services
• Increasing the number of trained village Community Midwives to assist safe delivery and arrange for emergency transport if complications arise;
• Increasing the numbers of village Health Educators.
Location:
The location of the Birth Center is in the town of Rongwo, which is the prefecture seat and the center of Rebkong County in terms of location and transportation. The 75 villages and 12 townships are located in the surrounding areas with various distances to the town of Rongwo. Moreover, Rongwo is the capital town of Rebkong (Malho) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which is the center of education, health, transportation, economic development, and commercial market for the prefecture. Thus, the Birth Center was strategically located in the town of Rongwo in order to reach the Rebkong population with the capacity to serve people from the other three counties within the prefecture as well.
Scope of Building:
The Birth Center will be a large contemporary Tibetan style building. It is built around a center courtyard with rooms for health service activities and administration. Facilities include three home-style birth suites, pre and post natal exam rooms, pharmacy, offices, spiritual room, and a substantial educational classroom for training both Community Midwives and health workers. The total size of the buildings is 504.86 square meters with three components of one building:
1)Two story building with 12 rooms which is 296 square meters. This is the main building and it has major activities rooms including exam rooms, pharmacy, office room, spiritual room, and conference room.
2)Three home-style birth suites with 3 large rooms which is 105.75 square meters.
3)Utility and facility rooms including laundry room, stokehold room, kitchen, restrooms, and gate keeper room with 103.08 meters.
Permits require an outer wall and gate, as well as the infrastructure for water system, electricity, sewer system.
Medical Equipment and Supplies:
Since this is a natural birth center, it will not rely on high levels of modern technology and supplies. However, the Birth Center is going to be one of the only health facilities for women and children who expect to receive comprehensive care. Unlike US birth centers, it is one of the only health facilities for Tibetan women and children. For this reason, we must include capable technology and skills, and be prepared to diagnose, provide health problem management, and emergency life saving services. In addition, the Birth Center will need to have essential drugs and supplements such as vitamins and iron. Also, the Birth Center will need to be stocked with Tibetan herbal medicine for assisting in deliveries, health problem management, and disease prevention.
The building will be Tibetan traditional style with necessary furniture, such as tables, chairs, cabinets in exam room, pharmacy, and waiting room. The health education conference room will have a dry-erase white board, tables, and chairs. The spiritual room will be organized with Medicine Buddha’s statue and Thangkas as well as the space to arrange a sitting area for conducting birth ceremony prayers and rituals. The three birth suites will be designed as a Tibetan home style which includes a Tibetan style warm bed and sitting places as well as a clean shower and restroom in each of the suites. The suites have the capacity to let a pregnant woman rest and stay comfortably with her husband and family members. The suites will create privacy for the family. The laundry room will have a washer and dryer machine.
The kitchen will be equipped with the necessary cooking equipment, supplies, and a stove. Stokehold is a settled stove for heating entire rooms during the winter and each room has this heating system as part of the furniture.
Finance and Sustainability:
The Birth Center qualifies as a Chinese non-profit organization. Criteria of a non-profit health organization includes being supported by the government, local communities or NGOs, but also for the organization become self-sufficient via minimum service fees without a surplus fee. Thus, the government is obligated to not charge an annual tax. The Birth Center will charge a minimum fee for health care services and training programs in order to be self-reliant; however, if anyone cannot afford the fees, the services will be free of charge.
We aim to make the Birth Center a model facility and one that can be replicated in other areas of need. This will be a force to improve maternal and child health care in remote and rural areas of Tibet and we strive for it to be a major component of the health care system. We are hoping to have a positive impact in terms of increasing utilization of high quality health care services, which will reduce mortality and morbidity among women and children. As a result, this will create a model for Tibetan maternal and child health care.
Attachments:
THF Update May 2008
By Tibetan Healing Fund, Board of Directors - Board Member, May 08, 2008 07:36 PM
Dear Global Giving Friends,
Greetings and Tashi Delek from Tibetan Healing Fund. On behalf of Tibetan Healing Fund, we offer sincere thanks and gratitude to the many people who support us in providing hope, financial donations and resources to Tibetans. Through your generous support and the efforts of our staff and volunteer teams in Tibet and the US, we are producing exciting and tangible results in education and health care for Tibetans in Qinghai Province (Amdo).
Tibetan Healing Fund (THF) works to create lasting, positive changes in the lives of Tibetan women and children. The cornerstone of all Tibetan Healing Fund’s projects is ensuring self-sufficiency by providing education and primary health care and community development for rural Tibetan children and their families.
In 1994, Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen raised money to expand the Serkya Village School from grades one to three to include grades four to six. This project was well received by the villagers, but many students were still not able to attend the school due to lack of money. While studying in the United States, Dr. Gyaltsen was able to raise money for a scholarship program to ensure that all village children in Serkya could attend school. In 2001, this program was formalized and became the Tibetan Healing Fund.
THF is a Seattle based non-profit organization with board members and supporters throughout the US. Tibetan Healing is unique in many ways; it was founded by a Tibetan Buddhist monk, medical doctor and significantly relies on local Tibetans to implement projects.
THF promotes sustainable development using transparent and participatory methods while incorporating local and traditional knowledge. Projects address social and humanitarian needs, specifically basic education, primary health care and community development in an effort to develop holistic programs. The projects encompass vocations training and capacity building that develop skills for our in-country staff, volunteers and the members of the community we serve.
THF’s In-Country team has created partnerships in the region to achieve greater synergy with individuals, communities and organizations. These partnerships include many local organizations, businesses, a Tibetan university, hospitals, education and health bureaus. Our projects are mainly in the Amdo region, but recently we have expanded to the other Tibetan regions of Kham and U-Tsang.
Now, Tibetan Healing Fund supports primary school children in three counties, conducts teacher trainings to improve rural education and holds countywide symposiums on bilingual education.
In addition, Tibetan Healing Fund has developed and implemented appropriate public health initiatives, trains village women to be Community Midwives, creates Tibetan-language public health education and training materials for low-literate rural women and health professionals, provides health education outreach, conducts training of trainer workshops, holds regional conferences on women’s health and is building the first Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center to be run by and for the Tibetan people.
*Goals Primary Health Care: Tibetan Healing Fund improves the basic health of women and children by providing public health education and increased access to quality and essential health services.
Education: Tibetan Healing Fund provides teacher training and improved access to quality education as a way to enhance the livelihood of individuals and the community.
2007 Annual Appeal
By Tibetan Healing Fund, Board of Directors - Board Member, May 09, 2008 06:40 PM
Attachments:
Socioeconomic Status and Maternal and Child Health in Rural Tibetan Villages.
By Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen - Ph.D. candidate UCLA School of Public Health, November 18, 2007 09:07 PM
COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT- Socioeconomic Status and Maternal and Child Health in Rural Tibetan Villages.
Tibetan Healing Fund with the guidance of Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen conducted a Community Health Assessment, Socioeconomic Status and Maternal and Child Health in Rural Tibetan Villages. The assessment was published in March 2007 in conjunction with California Center for Population Research, University of California, Los Angeles.
The goal of the Community Health Assessment is to provide information on the lives and health status of rural Tibetans in Qinghai Province which can be used to design, evaluate and expand health, nutrition and social development programs to improve the lives of the Tibetan population. To accomplish this goal, we provided a broad overview for this sample of socio-demographic characteristics, the health-related environment (drinking water, sanitation, hygiene, the availability of health care providers), children's health, women’s health, fertility, and health-related practices (breastfeeding and immunization).
Some of the results showed that 93% of women give birth at home without the assistance of any medical professional or birthing attendant, 1% of respondents indicated that a Village Health Worker was present at delivery and only 4% delivered at a township or county hospital. Of the respondents, 79% used the copper IUD followed by 10% sterilization. Among the women who used an IUD, 45% experienced abdominal infections and 31% experienced uterine infections. Of the 279 women surveyed, none of the women knew or heard of Hepatitis B, STIs, HIV and AIDS. And none of the women know how these infections are contracted or what they could do to protect themselves against the infections. One out of the 279 women said she knew about TB.
Attached is a copy of the Community Health Assessment: Socioeconomic Status and Maternal and Child Health in Rural Tibetan Villages. You may also download a copy of the assessment from our website.
Attachments:
Birth Center Project Updates, August 2007
By Tibetan Healing Fund, Board of Directors - Board Member, August 21, 2007 01:32 PM
A Brief Update On Current Activities:
After a long process, we have broken ground and have begun to lay the foundation of the first freestanding Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center for Tibetans in Qinghai Province (Amdo), P.R. China. This center will be completely built by local people using regional resources all contributing to save the lives of Tibetan women and children. The frame and building infrastructure including outer walls and foundation of the building are underway and we expect to complete the project by the end of 2007.
The project could not have been conceived nor begun without the donations of time and resources from locals as well as the financial support of our donors. This was one of our first major project fundraisers and all were pleased with the generous outpouring, much of which came through our GlobalGiving website.
We hope the pictures on the GlobalGiving website of the birth center under construction will inspire additional contributions for our cause. Please continue to help pave the way for a healthier Tibetan future and leave your permanent mark by helping to build the Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center.
Project Summary: The Tibetan regions have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world; therefore improving women’s health is critical to improve the health situation in Tibetan society overall. Tibetan Healing Fund is establishing the Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center, the first of many rural health facilities in Rebkong (Malho) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, P.R. China. The center will save the lives of women and children by providing safe, affordable, linguistically and culturally appropriate health services and health education. The center will also serve as a training facility for community midwives and health educators and a resource center for women to learn about personal and family health and nutrition.
Project Goals: To provide good quality and access to safe, affordable, linguistically and culturally appropriate health services, medicines and health education. The center will also serve as a training facility for community midwives and health educators and a resource center for women to learn about personal and family health and nutrition. We will accomplish this goal by:
1) Health Services
• Increasing accessibility to culturally and linguistically appropriate health care services for rural Tibetan women and newborns;
• Increasing the number of safe deliveries;
• Increasing the number of rural women receiving pre-natal, post-natal and neonatal care;
• Decreasing risk of death and disability from hemorrhage, eclampsia, obstructed labor and infection;
• Providing family planning education and services;
• Providing delivery kits for safe home births;
• Increasing access to essential drugs of Tibetan and western medicine;
• Providing management for complications and safe transport for emergencies related to pregnancy and childbirth.
2) Training Services
• Increasing the number of trained village Community Midwives to assist safe delivery and arrange for emergency transport if complications arise;
• Increasing the numbers of village Health Educators;
• Increasing rural women’s knowledge of physiology, women's health, family heath, hygiene, nutrition, infectious disease, such as HIV/AIDS and TB and disease prevention.
Problem Statement: Tibetan women and infants are at high risk for birth-related deaths. Because of lack of access to health care, finances, language barriers and health care infrastructure, the majority of births take place in cold environments without access to electricity or running water and often at high altitude. And, although theoretically free, the average cost of a normal delivery in a hospital is nearly four times the average per capita income with payment for care due upon admission. In addition, vehicles are rarely available, roads often treacherous or impassible, and language and cultural barriers alienating.
For a rural Tibetan mother to survive a complicated delivery, or for a child to live, is to beat the odds. In Tibet , the obstacles to a healthy birth, for the mother and child, are among the greatest in the world. Maternal mortality is the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age in Tibet and most villagers know at least one woman who has died from childbirth. In the Rekong regions were Tibetan Healing Fund works an estimated 93% of the Tibetan women give birth at home without the assistance of any medical professional or birthing attendants. The majority of rural women have lost one or more babies in their lifetime and approximately 1 in 6-10 newborns die within the first month of life.
Project Description: The Birth Center will provide rural Tibetans with access to pre-natal care including ultrasound technology, labor and delivery support including skilled assistance for normal delivery and appropriate referral for women with obstetric complications; postnatal care including care of the newborn and breastfeeding support; community midwife and health educator training; family health education; essential Tibetan and Western medicines; delivery kits for safe home births. Training sessions and health education on women’s health, family nutrition, sanitation, hygiene and disease prevention including sexually transmitted infections, TB, and HIV/AIDS.
The Birth Center will integrate Tibetan medical system and Tibetan culture and traditions with western interventions. This integrative and comprehensive approach utilizes biomedicine, ethno medicine and folk health systems to formulate interventions to improve the safe delivery and health of rural Tibetans. Some of the cultural services include celebration of births, child naming, and earring celebrations according to Tibetan medicine and local traditions.
The Birth Center’s construction and management is facilitated by Mr. Sangjie Gyatso, our In-Country Manager, Dr. Tsering Kyi, our In-Country member and Ob-Gyn (local Tibetan women), and Dr. Tenpie Junnie, our In-Country member and Deputy Director of Kumbum Tibetan Medical Hospital, under the supervision of Tibetan Healing Fund’s Board President, Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen. Our In-Country team is collaborating with the Rebkong County and Prefecture Health Bureau on this project; the Health Bureau and County Planning Department monitor the quality of the Birth Center’s construction.
Standards of care and operations will be governed by a set of protocols designed to ensure high standards of health services and training. The long term vision for the Birth Center is to foster self reliance and a full transition within 10 years to oversight by local staff and community advisory committee and stakeholders in order to build a stronger sustainable health facility for the region. The center will serve as a model facility and one that can be replicated in other areas of need.
Long-term Impact: The Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center has the potential to be the cornerstone of a healthy Tibetan community. The Birth Center will provide pre-natal, delivery and post-delivery care, access to Tibetan and western essential medicines as well as valuable education about women’s health, family nutrition, sanitation, hygiene and disease prevention including sexually transmitted infections, TB, and HIV/AIDS.
For the long-term, Tibetan Healing Fund's local and international experts will be working with the Rebkong Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center to establish a surveillance system; yearly collection of health information data and performance appraisals of the Birth Center and Community Midwives will be conducted in order to the improve the health care services and to provide further development of appropriate facilities.
Tibetan Healing Fund’s Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center can save lives of rural Tibetan women and babies and decrease the risk of disability caused by unsafe and unassisted delivery.
Budget and Timeline:
Tibetan Healing Fund plans to spend $60,000 to complete the construction of the Birth Center and $10,000 for furniture , medical supplies and equipment.
By the end of 2007, Tibetan Healing Fund expects to complete the building construction and open the doors to the community.
Attachments:
Spring 2007 Newsletter
By Tibetan Healing Fund - THF Board of Directors, May 08, 2007 03:59 PM
Greetings and Tashi Delek ! Tibetan Healing Fund has been working in the Tibetan region of Amdo, P.R. China, since 2001, helping Tibetan women and children and their communities develop the skills and resources to create opportunities for themselves to live healthier and more fulfilling lives. The cornerstone of all Tibetan Healing Fund’s projects is ensuring self sufficiency by providing education and primary health care.
Our work is not possible without the many generous donations from individual supporters, the unselfish dedication of our in-country staff, Tibetan advisory committee, US board of directors, the many US and Tibetan friends and the guidance of our founder, Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen.
We look forward to updating you on the many exciting and crucial projects we are working on this year. Thank you for helping us provide hope !
For 2007, Tibetan Healing Fund’s activities will remain focused on the priority areas of:
--Tibetan Maternal and Child Health
--Natural Birth & Health Training Center
--Maternal & Child Health Education
Handbooks
--Community Health Assessment
--Community & Family Health Education
--Community Midwives
--Primary Education
--Tibetan Heritage Primer Textbooks
--Improve Access to Quality Education
Attachments:
2006 Annual Report
By Tibetan Healing Fund - Tibetan Healing Fund, December 18, 2006 12:31 PM
Attachments:
Tibetan Birth and Health Training Center Project Proposal
By THF - THF, November 28, 2006 12:20 PM
Attachments:
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