Health care

Silent Revolution

Through its activities across the globe, Sai Medicare is setting models without fanfare

By Dr Hiramalini Seshadri

Love can heal: Sai Baba with a patient

In March last year, a tornado caused such havoc in Cordoba, Argentina, that the government declared national emergency. The army erected tents for a medical camp and doctors of Sai medicare, who began the day by singing the National Anthem and reading from the Holy Bible, provided care, nutrition and medication to over 1,500 people.

In 2003, in a medical camp in flood-ravaged Cossack, Sai medicare teams from Russia and Europe treated 8,800 patients and rebuilt the local hospital and ambulance station. At Aceh, Indonesia, Sai volunteers and teams of doctors from Canada and the US organised by the Sri Sathya Sai International Medical Committee got going the only two hospitals in the region which had lost its staff to the tsunami.

The medical team that rushed to Talpetate on the El Salvador-Guatemalan border following an earthquake did some social work as well. Discovering that lack of water supply was the greatest problem there, they installed water supply to 100 homes through a $4,000 water project.

In the US, Sai doctors run free health education and screening camps for those without health insurance. In Caracas, Venezuela, doctors of the local Sai organisation conduct regular eye camps and in Africa, 8,000 free cataract surgeries are planned this year.

These are just a few instances of how volunteers of a global movement called Medicare with Love are reaching out to the needy across the world. In 2004-2005, more than 330 medicare camps were held in over 30 countries, benefiting over 77,000 patients.

The nucleus of this movement is the secondary care hospital in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, which was launched 50 years ago as a small four-bedded hospital by Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Today, it caters to over 500 outpatients daily, besides inpatients. A similar general hospital has been functioning at Whitefield, near Bangalore, for 30 years. The icing on the Sai medicare cake, however, has been the Sri Sathya Sai Institutes of Higher Medical Sciences at Puttaparthi and Whitefield which have been providing free world-class tertiary medicare for over a decade.

Says Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the inspiration for this silent medical revolution: "Love can heal any disease; just live in infinite Love as I do and you too can do all this and more." Baba gave the message of Love at the International Sai Medical Conference held at Prashanthi Nilayam, Puttaparthi, last month: "Love all and serve all without fanfare and ego and thus realise your own innate divinity."

In India, Sai medicare has been running free outpatient clinics in urban areas for the past 25 years. In the last two years, over 39,500 rural medical camps have been held benefiting over 5.2 million people. The free Sai clinic for passengers at Chennai Central is the first of its kind in Indian Railways.

Sai medicare has tie-ups with projects of other nations, too. Kenya's Sai organisation has tied up with the government to distribute insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria. By November, 50,000 Sai nets would have been distributed.

The Sai net initiative validates all the recommendations of the millennium task force set up by the African heads of states—that a direct community approach is needed to tackle malaria, that insecticide-treated nets need to be given to all, and that the tie-up between governments and faith-based organisations is desirable to ensure successful project implementation as commitment is greatest in such organisations.

For the Sai volunteers, there is only one caste, the caste of humanity, only one religion, that of love, and only one God, the omnipresent one.

Source: The Week Magazine, October 9, 2005
http://www.the-week.com/25oct09/lifestyle_article1.htm