Tibetan medicine was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage

Traditional Tibetan medical services have reached all counties in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, local authorities said on Monday.

According to the regional health department, of Tibet's 74 counties, 22 have established Tibetan hospitals, while the remaining have set up Tibetan medical treatment departments in county-level hospitals.

"Tibet has 33 Tibetan medical institutions, boasting 1,364 beds and 1,901 permanent Tibetan medicine doctors. Additionally, about 40 percent of village doctors can provide traditional medical care for people," said Phurbu Drolma, director of the department. Click to learn Prostatitis in TCM.

He said over 95 percent of communities and all township hospitals will set up Tibetan medical clinics and pharmacies, and more than 75 percent of village hospitals will offer traditional medical care services by 2020.

With a history of at least 2,300 years, Tibetan medicine is one of the world's four traditional medicines, the other three being Chinese, Indian and Arab.

Similar to traditional Chinese medicine, Tibetans use herbs, minerals and sometimes insects and animal parts in their preparations. It was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage in 2006.

The region's Tibetan Hospital started to collect and sort out medical cures from 12 experienced doctors, and selected, digitalized and coded more than 100,000 recipes.

The local government plans to build a special Tibetan medicine database by 2015 to present pharmacology, the effects of pharmaceutical products and the composition of Tibetan medicine, the local culture department said.

Article source: Xinhua