Healthcare & Medical Education, the Indian Way-
FIRST PRIVATE MEDICAL COLLEGE PROVIDING TOTALLY FREE OF COST MEDICAL EDUCATION, WITH
PREFERENCE FOR RURAL STUDENTS, INAUGURATED IN SATHYA SAI GRAMA, KARNATAKA.
By Dr Hiramalini Seshadri MD
[email protected]
All Faith Spiritual Master, Sri Sathya Sai Baba is remembered 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 the global Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani chain of dedicated paediatric cardiac
hospitals with footprints from Fiji in the South Pacific to India and Sri Lanka, 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% 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 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 Program with the emphasis on
nutrition. In many countries, 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, 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, to further coverage of healthcare delivery, on a hub
and spokes, rent/lease model, 2022-23 has seen the launch of small Sai Swasthya rural health
centres. 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
government and civil society.
Such an ambitious, huge, selfless-service-oriented, model health care mission, with the aim of
reaching the unreached, serving the unserved, 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% 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 1000 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 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, the Sri Sathya Sai Sarla Memorial Hospital in Sathya Sai Grama, which was the
only dedicated COVID Hospital in the district with 150 oxygenated beds, was first upgraded into a
multi-speciality teaching hospital with more beds; enough to satisfy medical college norms. ‘Rogi
Narayana Hari’ (patient is God) is the ethos of the hospital; and competence-compassion-totally free
of cost, sum up the culture of the hospital. Naturally, patient numbers are going through the roof
with over 1200 villagers attending the OPD every day. The 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 of 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 / 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 5000 students, and 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 25th, Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi inaugurated this one of its kind rural Medical
College- the Sri Madhusudan Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, in the hamlet of Sathya
Sai Grama, in Chikkaballapura District, Karnataka, in the presence of its Founder, Sadguru Sri
Madhusudan Sai. The Prime Minister was accompanied by the Chief Minister of the state, Sri
Basavaraj Bommai and Health Minister, Dr K Sudhakar. Also present were the Chancellor of the Sri
Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, Sri BN Narasimhamurthy, and dr C Sreenivas, the head
of the global healthcare mission. Dr C 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, deeply appreciated the work of Sadguru
Madhusudan Sai and 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).
