Background
Doctor Pemba was born in 1932 in Gyantse, Tibet. His father was Rai Saheb Pemba Tsering, a prominent member of the British Political Office having served as British Trade Agent.
Doctor Pemba was born in 1932 in Gyantse, Tibet. His father was Rai Saheb Pemba Tsering, a prominent member of the British Political Office having served as British Trade Agent.
He founded the first hospital in Bhutan. He is also credited for writing the first work of fiction by a Tibetan in English, “Idols on the Path”, published in 1966, and is also regarded as the first Tibetan to publish a book in English, “Young Days in Tibet”, published by Jonathan Cape in 1957. The Pemba family had also made Gangtok their home, living in the residence of late Tashi Tsering, President of Sikkim State Congress.
Tsewang "Yishy" Pemba had no formal education until the age of nine when he started in 1941 at Victoria Boys School in Kurseong where he was until 1948.
Decades later he wrote about his experience. In 1949 he went to read Medicine at London University at University College and University College Hospital.
In 1955, Tsewang Pemba graduated with Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Science degrees, the first Tibetan student to receive British medical qualifications. He then was recruited by the future Prime Minister of Bhutan, Jigme Dorji, to establish that country’s first hospital and worked in Bhutan from 1956 to 1958.
In 1959, Doctor Pemba moved to Darjeeling where he worked until 1965 for Dooars and Darjeeling medical association hospital (DDMA) run by the Indian Tea Association when he also looked after the Tibetan Refugee School and the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Center.
In 1959, the uprising in Lhasa, Tibet, against the occupying Chinese forces caused thousands of refugees to India, and many to Darjeeling. Pemba volunteered to work at the Tibetan Refugee School and soon became a well-known figure amongst many high-ranking Tibetan lamas. Those he treated included Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa.
Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche.
Dudjom Rinpoche, an incarnation of a 1,000-year-old line of spiritual masters. Great Dzongsar Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö.
Chatral Rinpoche. Kalu Rinpoche. Tai Situ Rinpoche and Shamarpa.
He returned to Darjeeling to work until about the mid-1980s, at this time he befriended Thomas Merton.
Doctor Pemba, then returned to Bhutan to become Superintendent of the National Referral Hospital, Thimphu. He was also appointed to be an United Nations certifying doctor and sat on the committee devising a Bhutan national formulary. While in Bhutan, Doctor Pemba served as consulting physician to Bhutan’s royal family in this period as well.
Doctor Tsewang Yishey Pemba died at Siliguri on November 26, 2011.
A fifth child predeceased him in 2009.
In 1989, was a member of the Bhutan delegation to World Health Organization in Geneva.