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A UNIQUE CREATION
Dr
Michael Nobel on Swami’s Hospitals
 |
 Dr.
Michael Nobel is the great grand nephew of Alfred Nobel who
founded the Nobel Prize. Dr. Nobel is also the Chairman of THE APPEAL OF
NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES FOUNDATION. Below are extracts from a TV interview
he gave to an Italian producer.
What is lacking in this high-tech, electronically orientated Western
Society is the synergistic aspect of Spirituality. By this I mean the
effects of the positive mind on the patient’s health. The patient’s
belief system does not enter into healthcare considerations in Western
Europe, except of course when it comes to psychiatric illnesses.
So I was very
surprised, the first time that I visited the Hospital here, to see the
number of large photos displayed of Bhagavan Sai Baba, as most Western
hospitals might perhaps have one picture of the Head of State in the
reception room. But I was informed that it was the patients who needed
that, to provide spiritual support and the assurance that Baba was present
to lend His support to the healing process. The psychological belief
of the patient that a Higher Being will help him get well is largely
ignored in the West. But history, my friends, abounds with incidents
from the two World Wars for example, of soldiers who after being cured
in hospital and told that they would have to return to the inferno at
the front, simply turned their faces to the wall and  died without any
physical cause or reason for their death.
Over
the last 20 years I have been to dozens and dozens of hospitals and
I work in a hospital and I know hospitals very well, but I have never
seen anything
like this on Earth. Everyone is there to help you, it is a wonderful
feeling far removed from the national healthcare in the west which does
not seem to work very well. I went to a hospital with my daughter in
Sweden when she had a glass splinter in her eye and we had to wait 5
hours in emergency before we were seen - there were no doctors available.
You can go to private healthcare but then you have to pay. But here
this free hospital is really a marvellous creation.
I think the whole structure and concept is absolutely marvelous. It is not difficult to find the latest medical technology and the world’s hospitals are filled with expensive and advanced medical technology. It is also easy to find free hospitals. But a combination of the two, of a super specialty, highly advanced state of the art hospital that is free to the poor is a completely unique concept. And if we add the idea of Sai Baba’s presence, the spirituality that His presence in the form of photos or His actual presence lends to the Hospital, it becomes a very unique creation.
Yes,
I have been to Puttaparthi. I have visited most of Sai Baba’s
creations - the University, the Hospital that is there, the sports field,
the library and so on and they are all marvellous creations. It is unbelievable
that He has created this wondrous achievement based in a little village;
it is really very, very impressive. And the medical facilities are just
as good as in Whitefield - it is the same high quality and the same
friendly staff.
So in summary, the impressive thing about the Hospital created by Bhagavan Sai Baba is the combination of the three aspects: state-of-the-art technology; free medical treatment and the healing powers of His presence instilling in the patient the firm belief that he/she will get well; this is something I believe Western healthcare would do very well to consider.
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