Learning To Value Precious Gems

[Guest guest]

Learning To Value Precious Gems

Loving Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam. Our thoughts this weekend

are triggered by what appeared some Sundays ago as a Guest Editorial in a

leading newspaper in the country. The writer, a well-known lady, was giving

vent to the appalling state of hospitals in the country. She obviously has

always been seething about the terrible things that go on in most of the

hospitals in India and the last straw that broke the camel’s back was an

incident involving a person who had a sudden heart attack during a weekend. He

was rushed to a hospital, where he was refused admission. This is what she

wrote about why admission was refused:

 

Reason: he couldn’t produce Rs. 50,000 in cash, on the spot. Hospital

authorities left him gasping on a chair, while desperate relatives beseeched

them to accept a cheque. Their pleas that cash would be produced the minute the

banks opened on Monday went unheeded.

 

So what happened then? There happened to be a friend of the patient, a visitor

from America, who luckily had the needed cash. Money was paid and the patient

was admitted. The lady goes on:

 

The patient would have died had not my friend offered help [cash] at that late

hour. Patients are not just short-changed but frequently cheated. Sub-standard

and expensive medicines are demanded at all hours. From a strip of 10 or 20,

only four or five capsules are actually administered. What happens to the rest?

They are promptly pinched by ward boys/nurses and sold outside. Nearly every

medical facility that ought to come within the astronomical rates charged,

comes only with an extra. Even to avail of those that are on offer, one has to

provide chai-pani paisa [moneyfor“tea”] to lowly staff. It appears as if these

semi-literate fellows are the ones who actually run the hospital, such is their

clout. The gatekeepers behave like bouncers at nightclubs, using their

discretion to “allow” visitors after visiting hours.

 

Everything comes at a price, including getting the dearly departed to leave the

premises with dignity. ……..

 

Ah, tipping! You tip when you check in. You tip, while there. And you tip again

when you leave – dead or alive. ……..

 

It is not enough to have well-qualified doctors, or competent nurses. What we

need is an altered mindset, a more humane approach to the management of

sickness and diseases. Till then, we shall have to put up or shut up.

 

That in brief is what appeared in a leading newspaper and most unfortunately, it

is all quite true. Our purpose in quoting the above is mainly to draw your

attention to the remark about the need for “a more humane approach to the

management of sickness and diseases.” Millions and millions of people in India

are acutely aware of the frightening conditions in most of our hospitals but

how many are aware of Swami’s Hospitals and how they have actually been

following the “more humane approach” for many, many years? As a matter of fact,

most devotees are themselves only vaguely aware of what is happening. To give

you a sample of the remarkable things that take place, we would like to briefly

quote Dr. Iyer, Senior Cardiologist in the Puttaparthi Super Speciality

Hospital:

 

Within a month of my joining here, that is in 1992, a man from Warrangal came

along with his 13 year-old daughter. The girl had a hole in the heart, and was

admitted for surgery. The man was dressed like Gandhiji, wearing an upper cloth

and a half-dhothi that came up to the knee.

 

The girl was operated the next day. By Swami’s Grace she had an uneventful

recovery and was ready to be discharged. When we handed over the discharge

summary to the father, he started weeping. I asked him, “What is the problem?”

He says that for the last 13 days, he has been subsisting on one banana for

lunch and one banana for dinner. He was saving money so that he could have at

least one full meal with his daughter outside, before going home.

 

Now tell me, if you have even the tiniest spec of sensitivity in you, you

possibly can’t eat that day.

 

This is the category of people who I would say have been blessed by Bhagavan.

 

It is not just that the poor get free treatment; sometimes, very complex cases

are handled that would mean a lot of expense even for people who can afford.

Here is a description of what was done in the case of a poor farmer from

Coimbatore, who one day found he could not see. He was rushed to Swami’s

Hospital in Bangalore, where an examination showed that this man was suffering

from an aneurysm [enlargementofoneofthearteries] in the brain. This enlarged

blood vessel was pinching the optic nerve, which was why the farmer lost his

vision.

 

Now aneurysm can be taken care of by neurosurgery but in this case, it was a

giant aneurysm; and direct surgery was considered too risky. That was when the

neurosurgeons consulted the cardiac surgeons in the Hospital and a procedure

was evolved to treat this patient. According to this, the patient’s body was to

be first cooled to 18 0 C. The patient was then to be connected to a heart lung

machine; that is to say, the functions of the heart were to be transferred to

the heart-lung machine. When the body is thus cooled, blood circulation to the

brain can be considerably reduced [bythemachine] and safe brain surgery made

possible. However, the neurosurgeon has a maximum time window of only about 30

minutes to deal with the aneurysm.

 

And that exactly is the procedure that was followed in this case. First, the

cardiac surgeons cooled the body, opened the heart, and arranged for a reduced

blood flow; the neurosurgeons then took over and dealt with the aneurysm; after

that, the cardiac surgeons again got into the act, and took the patient off the

heart lung machine. In all, the operation took nine hours.

 

Is it possible even to imagine such a thing happening in one of the hospitals

described in the quote we offered earlier? The difference between those kind of

hospitals and Swami’s Super Speciality Hospitals is neatly summarised by Dr.

Neelam Desai, Senior Cardiac Surgeon in the Puttaparthi Hospital. She says:

 

Here we are able to do all kinds of surgeries. Money is never a problem, and we

can give patients, the costliest of medicines. The ability to serve the

patient to the fullest extent and give him the best – that is clearly seen

here. Things are very different outside. There, if ventilators are not

available, they switch off the patient from the ventilator. By contrast, here

we are able to give the patient the best in all respects. That gives a

tremendous satisfaction. The atmosphere is totally different and we are able

deal with all kinds of cases.

 

And now, here is a sample of how patients respond to all this. This is the story

of a taxi driver from Mumbai [formerly Bombay]. One day, this man, incidentally

a Muslim, suddenly had a heart attack. He was rushed to a clinic, where after

spending a lot of cash he was told that he had suffered a heart attack. He was

told that the surgery was costly, and while saving money for it, he should take

some medicines. This man with the heart attack was now heart broken. Where was

he to get all that money from? His family, including his own brothers turned

the other way, leaving this poor taxi driver at his wits ends. But God was kind

and made sure this man heard about God’s Hospital in Bangalore. There he went

and underwent the required surgery. He was stunned that he did not have to pay

for anything – the pre-surgery examination and investigations, the surgery, the

medicines, the stay in the ICU and the cardiac ward, and also the food! The

heart was repaired and the man was also transformed. He has now taken a vow to

come once a year to the Hospital to do Seva! Yes, that is the story of a poor

taxi driver from the very city where the newspaper we quoted from is published.

 

 

The Taj Mahal has been hailed as one of the Wonders of the World. The Taj is

unquestionably a wonderful monument, but a monument for a woman who is dead.

The Hospitals of Swami are, we believe, greater wonders of the world, since

they bring back to life people who are without hope and almost dead. The Taj

celebrates romantic love whereas Swami’s Hospitals are all about a different

kind of Love, Love that is Pure, Love that is totally Selfless, and Love that

is Divine.

 

We have more say about these extraordinary manifestations of Swami’s Love but

that would have to wait till next weekend. Meanwhile, we hope you would reflect

on all the above and share it with as many as possible.

 

See you again next Sunday.

Jai Sai Ram

With Love and Regards,

"Heart2Heart"

RadioSai's e-Journal Team,

In Sai Service.