Sathya Sai Super (Tertiary Care) Free Hospitals - Lighthouses of hope and goodness

Here's a slightly edited extract from a Sai devotee correspondent's recent email (with approval from the correspondent):

Here I would like to narrate a personal experience when I went to deposit a cheque sent by a devotee friend to the (Sri Sathya Sai) Central Trust office (in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India) opposite the South Indian canteen. As I was asked by my friend to deposit the cheque into the "corpus fund" I was asked to wait for my turn. Meanwhile one "visibly" poor man entered. He seemed to be little confused and unsure. I thought he mistook the Central Trust office for canteen token issuing counter. He was holding a 100 rupee note in his hand. Looking at the 100 rupee note and his physical appearance this man reminded me of  Lord Krishna's childhood friend "Sudama" ( also known as Kuchela in South India). He came up to me and asked (in Hindi) "where is the place to make a deposit to Swami's Trust". I told him you have come to the right place. As I was seated next to him and as we waited for our turn, he started a small conversation. He said he is from a very remote village in the Indian state of Bihar. I asked him how did he come to Puttaparthi. He said his son had a heart related problem and was successfully operated in the Super Speciality Hospital. He continued, "such a big operation was done absolutely free of charge. This hospital should exist for eternity and beyond so I am offering this 100 rupees which is from my heart and I know it is nothing compared to the huge expenses incurred in running this hospital but I feel it is my responsibility to offer something to Swami's hospital". I really had tears seeing his devotion and more importantly the "impact" made by Swami's hospitals on the poor and downtrodden. He indeed is a very "responsible" devotee who took pains to find the office and made sure his hard earned money went to the continuation of Swami's mission and in spreading His message of love.

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Whether one likes or dislikes Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the example set by him and his movement, of setting up and successfully running magnificent NGO (non-governmental organization) hospitals providing free medical care including very sophisticated tertiary care, is a really bright spot in human caring for the marginalized. Here is the wiki page of the Sathya Sai 'super' hospitals, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Sathya_Sai_Super_Speciality_Hospital.

That these are "flourishing" even after the passing away of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, as per the media report referred in my recent post, Media article praises Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust for flourishing Sai institutions, is really great news. They can be inspiring examples to other religious and charitable institutions worldwide in that such models can be setup and somehow, good and charitable people including voluntary part-time staff as well as full-time reasonably paid (or sometimes even poorly paid) dedicated staff turn up to run/support these activities. Of course, there may be scope for only a limited number of such institutions in an area as they are dependent on funding and other support from charity inclined people in the community. But my point is that even having one such NGO tertiary care hospital providing free service of decent quality in each state (or, in future sometime, each district) of India (and the world), would be creating lighthouses of hope and goodness for the whole populace.

I should also mention that NGO operated primary health care institutions as well as secondary health care institutions (like general hospitals) offering free service of decent quality also contribute significantly in spreading hope and goodness in the community. However, it is tertiary care hospitals (super speciality hospitals) offering free service of decent quality that awe everybody right from the poor who receive the services to chief ministers and prime ministers who find it difficult to ensure that such services of decent quality are provided in government run health institutions. And so it is these "super hospitals" offering free service of decent quality that become the lighthouse symbols of hope and goodness among the populace.

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