Article of the week - Sai Baba's medical trust

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Article of the week

Monday, November 24, 2003

 

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Published in: Sify News

Nov 22, 2003

 

Sai Baba's medical trust

 

Sai Baba speaking on the setting up of a super-speciality hospital

in Puttaparthi: "When any educational or medical institution is

established, the sole aim is to make a business of it. There are few

who are ready to set up institutions to provide free facilities for

the poor. Therefore, from the start we decided to set up a hundred-

crore hospital near Prashanthi Nilayam. Even as higher education is

free here, 'higher medicine' also will be free. People spend some

lakhs to get heart surgery done in the U.S. What is the plight of

the poor? Who looks after them? If they go to the cities, they will

not get even basic medicine. Recognizing this fact, we have launched

this big hospital project. Whether it is heart bypass operation, a

kidney transplant, a lung operation, brain surgery or eye surgery,

everything will be done free. This has been decided upon from the

very start of the project. The hospital will be opened on November

22, 1991."

 

The guiding principles driving all medical relief activities of the

Sai Baba medical trust are:

 

Medicine for all: Medical aid should be the right of every

individual, regardless of caste, creed, nationality, or colour.

 

Medicine free from the stigma of commercialisation: The act of

healing should be restored to its pristine sanctity, which can be

done only when it ceases to be a commodity bought and sold in the

market.

 

Human values in medical care: The human agents of the delivery

system of health care, be they health administrators, doctors,

nurses, or technicians, should be perfectly "human" in thought,

word, and deed. They should demonstrate the five human values -

Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Love, and Nonviolence - in every act of

theirs.

 

Spiritual well being as a medical concept: Present day medicine

stops at laying down health practices and policies to provide

physical, mental, and psychological health of the individual. It

makes little or no attempt at strengthening the spirit of a person -

the divine force in them that energises their physical, mental, and

psychological systems. Modern medicine has lost its inherent and

intrinsic proximity to spirituality. Until that element is restored,

medicine or health care could never be holistic.

 

Medical care in Prasanthi Gram is divided into primary health care,

general hospitals and speciality hospitals. As part of primary

health care, medical camps are organised on a regular basis in rural

areas where patients are given medicines free of cost. Hundreds of

thousands of patients are treated for eye ailments and thousands of

cataract operations are performed. Free medical dispensaries are

being run at various places by Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations.

Blood donation camps are organised. Medical teams from Sri Sathya

Sai Organisations of various states visit orphanages, old age homes,

leprosy homes etc. for medical checkup on a continuous basis.

 

The Sai Baba foundation runs general hospitals at Prasanthi Nilayam

and Whitefield, Bangalore, which render free medical aid. These

hospitals offer up-to-date facilities, and the dedicated and

selfless service of the resident and visiting doctors and nurses

have resulted in their phenomenal growth.

 

The majority of the patients are from socially and economically

weaker sections of society. Both hospitals today have speciality

units. The various departments in the general hospitals are: general

medicine, pediatrics, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, plastic

surgery, urology, ENT surgery, ophthalmology, Sri Sathya Sai Eye

Bank, obstetrics, and gynecology.

 

The super-speciality hospitals form the tertiary health care part of

Sai foundation. These hospitals provide excellent patient care

facilities to all, free of cost. Even heart surgeries like CABG and

valve replacement and kidney transplants are done entirely free of

cost. Leading doctors specialising in cardiology, urology,

nephrology, ophthalmology, etc., come from different parts of the

world on their own and render their services free of cost. Most of

the patients are from socially and economically weaker sections of

society.

 

Source:

http://sify.com/news/sathyasaibaba/fullstory.php?id=13314208