All Faith Spiritual Master, Sri Sathya Sai Baba is remembered the most for inspiring his followers to give; give free food to the hungry, free quality healthcare to the needy and free education to all with love, seeing God in one’s fellowmen. Baba always said that after his time, his students and devotees would continue the good work; and that is happening.
When Baba exited the physical in 2011, a then barely thirty-year old Madhusudan Naidu, a double gold medallist from Baba’s University in Puttaparthi, an MBA and ex-banker, was inspired by Baba from the beyond to carry on and eventually lead a mission under the banner of the Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Group of Institutions. He followed his heart selflessly and fearlessly, despite endless trouble from many quarters who considered him an upstart! Baba was known all through life as the ’Man of Miracles’. In hindsight, this posthumous mission in the verticals of nutrition, education and healthcare qualifies to be the greatest miracle of all.
On the healthcare front, the continuing mission began with healthcare focussed on children; tertiary care to battle congenital heart disease, the commonest birth defect in children, and primary care to battle the scourge of malnutrition. On the tertiary care front, in 2011, C. Sreenivas, an alumnus of the first batch of Baba’s students who helped set up the legendary tertiary care hospitals in Puttaparthi and Whitefield in Bangalore, was commanded by Baba, through Madhusudan, to set up a free heart hospital for children in the heartland of India - in Raipur, in backward Chhattisgarh. Today, it has expanded into a global chain of dedicated Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani paediatric cardiac hospitals with footprints from Fiji in the South Pacific to India and Sri Lanka; from Nigeria in Africa, all the way to Mississippi, the poorest state of the USA. To date, 25,000 plus children have had their hearts mended- totally free of cost, literally getting a Gift of Life.
As for primary care, India is home to one third of the world’s stunted children and half of the world’s wasted children; and 70 per cent of them are in rural areas. In 2012, Sadguru, inwardly guided by Baba, launched a free of cost nutritious, fresh ‘Breakfast Seva’ for rural government school children, who invariably came to school only for the free mid-day meal. What began as a small experiment on fifty school children in the Bangalore rural district by a bunch of dedicated IT techies who volunteered to sacrifice sleep and set out on their two-wheelers at the crack of dawn, with a cook in tow, to a tumbledown school in Doddabelle, today has grown into an 'Annapoorna' mission, which serves a nutritious breakfast to over a million children every single day. In rural north-east India, where access to healthcare is a challenge, a primary healthcare-on-wheels initiative named Aarogya Vahini, primarily to battle the NCD epidemic, has been growing by leaps and bounds!
Touched by the plight of malnourished, under-weight, young pregnant women of the global South, in 2017, Sadguru launched a 'Divine Mother and Child Health Programme' globally, with the emphasis on nutrition. World over, devotees took up the challenge and antenatal care clinics for under-served communities got under way with the focus on nutrition. An amazing protein and micro-nutrient supplement, ‘SaiSure’, for free distribution to pregnant women, toddlers and school children was also developed. Its impact? Improved haemoglobin and weight among young mothers; and improved attendance, academic performance and health indices among school children. School teachers are delighted; for they can now teach children who are hungry for knowledge rather than for food.
On the secondary care front, multi-speciality secondary care hospitals were begun in rural Nigeria and Sathya Sai Grama in India. In 2022, on the tenth Anniversary of Sathya Sai Sanjeevani hospitals, in a bid to reverse the unacceptable maternal and infant mortality rates in rural India by promoting institutional deliveries, Sanjeevani Mamatwa hospitals (maternity hospitals) were launched, the first being in the Bastar tribal belt of Chhattisgarh. Eventually, one such facility is to come up in every district of India. Connected to these hospitals, several small Sai Swasthya rural health centres were launched in 2022-23 on a hub and spokes, rent/lease model to further coverage of healthcare delivery. They offer diagnostic facilities and primary care through tele-medicine at the taluk level. Beginning with Karnataka state, Sai Swasthya will eventually cover all of India. All services are provided totally free of cost to the beneficiaries; and at every level of this amazing rural healthcare mission, Sadguru had adopted Baba’s Sarkar-Samaj-Sanstha model of working harmoniously with the government and the civil society.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai
Such an ambitious, huge, selfless-service-oriented, model health care mission, with the aim of reaching the unreached, serving the unserved and literally doing the un-done, requires a truly inspired team of doctors, nurses, paramedics and so on, who would be ready to serve in rural areas. The million-dollar question posed by the intelligentsia to Sadguru was- “All your ideas are noble; but how are you going to get such dedicated doctors, nurses and paramedics who will be happy to work in rural areas?”
In 2021, Sadguru Madhusudan Sai declared the impossible, that medical education, which hitherto, has been mainly the preserve of the well-heeled, would be de-commoditised and de-commercialised, that he would establish a world class residential private Medical College in rural Sathya Sai Grama, which would give totally free of cost medical education preferably to rural students who today make up only a paltry 5 per cent of medical students. Sadguru says it is unrealistic to expect urban students to be happy to make a life amid cows and buffaloes, though exceptions may be there. The key is to train rural students in a rural milieu, by a faculty that cares for rural patients to generate inspired young doctors ready to serve the rural. Only then can we move from the current one doctor for 11,000 plus population in rural India, to the WHO recommendation of one doctor for 1,000 population.
Rural roots, gratitude for a world-class but free medical education, a purpose and passion imbibed from an inspired faculty will be the drivers of a generation of healthcare professionals devoted to rural healthcare. A truly dedicated faculty is in place and in February 2023, the NMC after inspection has given permission to admit 100 medical students in July 2023. Post graduate DNB courses in the basic clinical disciplines have also received approval, for all the infrastructure is miraculously in place.
Infrastructure-wise, in 2021, the Sri Sathya Sai Sarla Memorial Hospital in Sathya Sai Grama, which was the only dedicated COVID-19 Hospital in the district with 150 oxygenated beds, was first upgraded into a 360 bedded multi-speciality teaching hospital. ‘Rogi Narayana Hari’ (patient is God) is the ethos of the hospital; and competence, compassion and totally free of cost sum up the culture of the hospital. Naturally, patient numbers are going through the roof with over 1,200 villagers attending the OPD every day. The Rs 350 crore Dr C. Rajeshwari academic block, with state-of-the-art facilities, is the newest addition. Under the aegis of the Sri Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, the Sri Madhusudan Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, as christened by devoted fellow human beings, is ready to admit the first batch of 100 medical students into its pre-clinical wing with on-campus hostels, this academic year. Work on an additional 400 bedded facility, to be ready before the first batch reaches the clinical years, is under way.
Aspiring students need to pass the NEET exam. They will also need to pass an aptitude test that assesses their suitability for rural service. Students from low-income rural domicile families will get preference; they have to live on campus and follow the discipline of residential learning. Boarding, lodging, medical education- everything will be given to them free with great love; but they will need to sign a contract to work in rural areas for as many years as they studied free of any cost; ie, 5 years. Those who jump this bond will be required to pay back all the expenses incurred to make them doctors.
Sadguru’s experiment with the general education wing of the mission has proved the astounding power of gratitude. Nearly all of the graduating batches of the Sri Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, which imparts higher education totally free of cost, have opted to join the mission and serve; to give back to society, the gift of free values-based education with love, that they received. Sadguru is therefore confident that if the right kind of rural students are given the right training, they would in turn become inspired doctors who would serve in the rural healthcare mission.
What is the math of the money needed? Indian regulations necessitate admitting 100 medical students a year for a five-year course at a minimum 460 bedded hospital facility. In short it means providing free education, boarding and lodging for a total of 500 medical students and offering free quality treatment to around 500 inpatients at any point in time. Private colleges charge both the students and patients; and make good the cost of education, hospital treatment and of course, profit. In a free set up such as this, with subsidies on drugs, consumables, etc, from all stake holders, as well as stringent controls on expenses and admin-costs, the cost of educating one medical student and running one free hospital bed for a year, can be brought down to around 50 lakh rupees, reckoned the team after brainstorming with experts. Five hundred kind-hearted individuals or groups coming up with fifty lakhs each a year, can keep the medical college going. One word from Sadguru - and his team in Sathya Sai Grama and devotees the world over chipped in. Corporates through CSR funds, high net worth individuals, ordinary devotees, and the Indian diaspora abroad have come forward to create the infrastructure, sponsor scholarships for students as well as support hospital beds. The Heart2Heart Foundation led by legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar who has been an Ambassador for the Sanjeevani Child Heart hospitals, is a major fund raiser.
Sadguru points out that the Universe conspires to help when selfless service is done with selfless love. The past decade is proof of that; for with nothing but fearlessness and a readiness to serve with selfless love, led by Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai, the Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Group today serves 1.2 million school children free breakfast, gives values based quality residential education across 27 school campuses and a university with three campuses to around 5,000 students. In India alone, 412,000 plus patients have benefited through the healthcare mission while globally, thousands of children have got a new lease of life through heart surgery; and all this has been done TOTALLY FREE OF COST FOR THE BENEFICIARIES concerned.
On March 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the one of its kind rural Medical College—Sri Madhusudan Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research—in the hamlet of Sathya Sai Grama, in Chikkaballapura district of Karnataka in the presence of its founder Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai. The prime minister was accompanied by the chief minister of the state, Basavaraj Bommai and health minister Dr K. Sudhakar. Also present were the Chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, Sri Narasimhamurthy, and the head of the global healthcare mission, Dr C. Sreenivas. Dr Sreenivas, who welcomed the prime minister and the gathering, recounted how his late mother, Dr C. Rajeshwari, in whose memory the new academic block is named, relinquished her practice abroad to start the free General Hospital in then rural Whitefield on Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s command in the seventies.
The chief minister lauded the humanitarian projects undertaken in the state by Sadguru with amazing efficiency and compassion. Sadguru, whose vision and grace power this initiative, stated that medical education that empowered dedicated rural youth was the need of the hour globally. A video of the free service rendered by the organisation in the verticals of nutrition, education and healthcare globally was screened. Food, education and healthcare had always been given free in ancient Bharat. This free medical college was one more step in reviving that culture.
The prime minister pointed out that only a concerted effort by all citizens and all sections of society could make the vision of Amrit Kal happen, and in that regard, he deeply appreciated the work of Sadguru Madhusudan Sai and the team which were in sync with the nation’s objectives.
That this gathering in rural India included devotees from over fifteen countries, and that the live proceedings were being watched in over fifty countries, all of whom had selflessly contributed to the success of this unique mission of free medical education for rural youth, only underscored the truth of the ancient motto of Bharat - ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’(one world, one family).
dr.hiramalini.seshadri@gmail.com
