Sai Inspires - 12th March 2006 from Prasanthi Nilayam

[Guest guest]

Precious Gems' What are the characteristics of a true human being? Swami

explains to us today. Did you read the article"The Hospital HasGive

Me...Time."Click Here to read now.

Sai Inspires - 12th March 2006 Divinity is fully present in everyone; it

is patent for those who have eyes that can see clearly and deeply. Whoever

denies this is only cheating himself of his reality. The conclusion,

therefore, is inevitable: it is the duty of man to see in society the

expression of divinity, and to use all his skills and effort to promote the

welfare and prosperity of society. You

must cultivate expansive feelings, inclusive thinking and intuitive vision.

Without these, you are but an inert being; if you deride all three, you lose

the title to be human. The spirit of renunciation, adherence to virtue,

eagerness to cooperate, the sense of kinship – these are the characteristics of

a human being. - Divine Discourse, 1st March 1974. Only in an individual who

is morally strong does the human personality find its best expression. - Baba

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:

#993366; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Narrow'">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.

normal"> 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.

0in 0pt"> 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.

0in 0in 0pt"> See you again next Sunday. Jai Sai Ram With Love and

Regards, "Heart2Heart" RadioSai's e-Journal Team, In Sai Service. To

see the complete schedule of today's RadioSai

programmes, Visit us at www.radiosai.org to know more about RadioSai

and our e-Journal "Heart 2 Heart".

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