Health care
Through its activities across the globe, Sai Medicare is setting models
without fanfare
By Dr Hiramalini Seshadri
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.
Love can heal: Sai Baba with a patient
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: Theweek
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