Over the phone from her house in Changspa, Leh, Dr Tsering Landol’s voice is tender, almost frail. It is difficult to imagine that she has delivered babies in freezing temperatures, fought cultural myths surrounding menstruation, and pioneered advancements in women’s health in the icy region. For her efforts, the 75-year-old was recently awarded the Padma Bhushan.
Back in 1979, when she joined Leh’s SN Memorial Hospital, she was the first and only practising gynaecologist from the region. SN Memorial was the only major district hospital then, and Dr Landol soon rose to become the head obstetrician until she quit in 2003. Three years later, the Government recognised her efforts and she received the Padma Shri.
Today, every Thursday, she conducts a voluntary clinic with the Ladakh Heart Foundation. “I may have retired, but I’m still physically and mentally fit. So even though I’m too old for emergency cases, I still want to offer whatever I can to my patients. It is very much needed in this region,” she says.
There is evident pride in Dr Landol’s voice as she lists the extensive department of SN Memorial Hospital: “We now have pathologists, ophthalmologists, dermatologists, psychiatrists…”
This is vastly different from the time she practised (“asman aur zameen ka farak,” as she puts it). To get even central heating for the hospital was a challenge. “It is essential for us to keep an optimal temperature of 30 degrees while delivering the baby. We would improvise and use the Kashmiri hammam system (that involves dry hot air baths) to keep the mother warm,” she says.
The lack of oxygen at birth was another major problem: “There would not always be enough stock of oxygen cylinders, which could be dangerous in cases of prolonged labour or asphyxiated babies. Transporting these cylinders was also not easy.”
Her field emergencies, in case of irregular deliveries, and medical camps would take her to remote areas, where she would meet women, interact with them, and advise them about their diets and hygiene.
Here she observes another change, other than technological progress. “There used to be so many myths regarding women’s reproductive health,” she says, adding that there is better awareness now.
As a child, she remembers noticing how her mother was treated as an untouchable after her delivery, and given food in separate vessels. “I innately felt there was something wrong with that, but couldn’t say anything. As I grew up, I understood things better,” she says.
While in college, she decided that having a woman doctor, who could understand women’s problems, with whom women could put aside their shyness and speak freely, was the need of the hour. “Around me, I would see issues like mothers who died while giving birth, abortions, UTIs, anaemia, and so on.”
At 13, she met doctors at a school function, and it only strengthened this desire to be one. “With their stethoscopes around their necks, they were always so impressive!” she says, her voice rising slightly.
Train local
To bring about these changes required having honest and dedicated conversations with women. In her four decades of experience, Dr Landol has found communication with patients the most important part of the job.
Ladakh, now a union territory, spans over 59,000 square kilometres and is yet very sparsely populated. “The population is scattered and you have to understand the background of each person you are speaking to: their family situation, their economic class…”
Which is why she believes that it is very important to have dedicated local doctors. “It is because I am a Ladakhi that I was able to identify with the issues the women were facing, speak to them in Ladakhi, encourage them to open up about their problems and convince them about the solutions.”
Dr Landol herself graduated from Srinagar, and went on to train, for four months in the UK, sponsored by the British Council, and in Delhi. Two of her friends from the UK are currently volunteering to bring cervical screening to SN Memorial Hospital, and have donated equipment for this.
While she is thankful for the work foreign and national NGOs have done so far — for doctors from abroad, like the UK and Singapore, conducting camps in areas that are difficult to access — she emphasises that the need to train local doctors is more important.
This idea of self-sustainability was instilled in her at quite a young age. Having grown up in an agrarian family, she says, “We don’t belong to a big city… So we were taught everything about how to sustain yourself — gardening, farming, sewing, knitting, everything.”
She carries this philosophy into her personal life as well. She lives in a joint family with her three brothers and their children. “I am not married, that is why I am independent, enjoying my life,” she laughs.
