Sai Media News:Sai Medicare-Love can heal

[Guest guest]

Sai Media News: Sai Medicare - Love can heal Health careThrough

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

By Dr Hiramalini SeshadriIn 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: The week magazine

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