Giving Life and More
Talk a while to her,
and you will realize that, 18-year-old Noor
is a bright girl. She never had much of
schooling, though. After her fifth class,
she labored as a farmhand, to support the
family, to get her older sisters married.
Work in the village fields was never easy
for her. The slightest bit of exertion would
lead to bouts of gasping and palpitations.
Fatigue would wear her down, and even eating
became arduous. The doctor in the nearby
town sounded the death knell for Noor, when
he said that, she had a serious heart problem-
an obstruction to blood outflow from the
heart. How could a family that earned barely
Rs.50 a day, afford a heart surgery that
cost over a lakh? But the very same doctor
asked the family to rush to Baba's Hospital
in Puttaparthi (The doctor was a Sai Devotee,
himself!). Today, after her surgery in the
SSSIHMS, Noor smiles and says that she is
all set to support her family again. "
We owe it all to Bhagawan. If not for His
Hospital, our daughter would have had no
future. I can think of her Nikah now, and
get her to start a family of her own!"
says Noor's mother, with a newfound hope
in her eyes. This devout Muslim lady loves
Prasanthi Nilayam, and even attended the
Vijay Dashami celebrations, to have the
Darshan of the Lord, who gave her love and
hope, though His Hospital.
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Tulasi's pain was
almost unbearable. But even more, was the
fact that she could not cook for her husband
and three sons. Tulasi's oldest boy did
the cooking, while she watched and writhed.
Her blood pressure rocketed and she often
became breathless. Her husband, a farmer,
spent a fortune to get her angiogram done
in the district hospital, only to find out
that her heart was normal. The CT scan that
followed shocked the couple. Tulasi was
found to have a potentially malignant tumor
in her kidney- a Pheochromocytoma. The cost
of the operation, in the cancer center at
Hyderabad, was far from affordable. They
returned home in despair, to wait for the
possibly life-threatening tumor to take
its toll. Tulasi's younger brother had heard
from the "Sai Bhajan Group" in
his village, about a Sai Hospital, where
all were treated for free. He came to Puttaparthi
with his sister. Two days of consultation
and tests in the Department of Urology were
followed by immediate surgery. The tumor
was excised. Her brother can't hide his
joy. "I now know why they call Him,
God! It is like a temple here. The doctors,
sisters and volunteers are so wonderful."
The housewife is now happy on the road to
recovery. She just can't wait to get back
to her village in West Godavari and do some
cooking!
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A kerosene lamp tipped
over on the bed of an 18 day old baby
.
"That was the fateful moment that charred
me for a lifetime. I don't even remember
what my face was like, before that!",
says Binoy. Binoy's village in Orrisa did
not have even a dispensary, where his parents
could take him, to treat the second-degree
burns, on his face. "Growing up was
never easy. I had a very few friends; a
burnt face, without a nose, is unsightly
to look at!" Binoy decided to wait
till he was old enough, to undergo a reconstruction
surgery for his nose. He taught students,
to earn money for his college education
and also save up for the expensive plastic
surgery that he planned to have. "
I went to various hospital's in my state
and saw that the results of reconstruction
surgeries there, were far from good. I had
lost all hope of finding a good surgeon.
It was then that I met Sri.Naik, the Convener
of the Sathya Sai Organization in my town.
He told me to go to the plastic surgeon
in Baba's Hospital. The word is around that
he is excellent!", Binoy recounts.
Today the young software engineer is grateful
to Dr. Reddy, for his skilled hands, and
Swami, for His miraculous Hospital! He smiles
with a confidence he has never known before,
and says, "Baba has given me this nose
and
a lot more!"
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Chiran is a cherubic
boy from Madhya Pradesh. This smart and
active 11-year-old had trouble catching
up with his friends at play. He would sit
down breathless and exhausted when he tired
to do so. Father was devastated to learn
that little Chiran had a hole in his heart,
made worse by leak of the adjoining valve.
Yadav could not even dream of earning the
exorbitant sum he would have to pay for
his son's operation. At work in the field,
the next day, he told his fellow labourer
and friend, Hari Lal, about his son's condition.
Hari Lal revealed that there was a Hospital
in South India that treated totally free,
and confessed that he had himself been operated
for kidney stones, in that Hospital! He
asked Yadav to take his son there immediately.
Yadav had to save for three months before
finally making it to the 'Free Hospital',
with his son. Today, after his operation,
Chiran is all excited and ready to beat
his friends at play. He softly whispers
into his father's ears, " Papa, I want
to become a doctor!"
With tears in his eyes, the father can only
exclaim, " This place is Heaven!"
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(Names have been changed
to protect the patients' confidentiality) |
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