`Bangalore Sai Baba lays foundation for another hospital`

By B.S. Manu Rao BANGALORE: Sri Sathya Sai Baba on Sunday laid the foundation stone for hospital building close to the Sri Sathya Sai Super-speciality Hospital in Whitefield on the occasion of the silver jubilee of general hospital. Like all other welfare institutions of the Sai Organisations, the new hospital, too, will treat patients free. The hospital is expected to be inaugurated on November 23, the birthday of Baba. Baba promised water to the people of Bidar and Bijapur districts in deference to the request by Chief Minister S.M. Krishna who was present on the occasion. The Sri Sathya Sai Drinking Water Project in Andhra Pradesh is helping some 1,000 villages of the Rayalseema region. Baba paid tributes to the late Dr C. Rajeswari Raghavendra Rao, an eminent obstetrician and gynaecologist who helped set up the hospital and was instrumental in its growth. "Dr Rajeswari devoted her life to the cause of the needy.'' Dr Rajeswari, who was running a 450-bed hospital in Ghana, chose to work in a tiny shed that was the hospital 25 years ago. Incidentally, her son, C. Sreenivas, was instrumental in setting up Baba's Super-speciality Hospital in Bangalore as project director. He supervised its construction and commissioning and had it functioning in just around a year. Baba said that while some men had physical strength, some others had mental acumen while some possessed the power of discrimination. However, it is the combination of all three in a man that makes him an intellectual and high on the spiritual plane. "India is rich in the spirit of sacrifice and righteousness and only these qualities will uplift the masses."