The two-day Conference – International Conference on Future of Medical Education which was conducted n November 21 and 22, 2021, celebrated its valedictory event in the most appropriate manner by celebrating Chiranjeevi Bhava – ‘gifting lives’ to 23 children who suffered cardiac defects. These 23 children in the age of six months to 12 years from various districts of Karnataka and North India, were identified with congenital heart defects during the health screening that was conducted by the Divine Mother and Child Health Program, and have been successfully operated at the Sri Sa
thya Sai Sarla Memorial Hospital at Sathya Sai Grama, Muddenahalli in the Chikkaballapur district of Karnataka. For the first time in the history of Chikkaballapur district, the Sri Sathya Sai Sarla Memorial Hospital, a multi-speciality hospital fully equipped with high-end facilities, hosted a team of surgeons to perform 23 paediatric cardiac surgeries over the last eight days. Abhishek, one of the beneficiaries of the free paediatric cardiac treatment at the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Centre for Child Heart Care spoke thus: “This mission of service gave me a new lease of life. I am currently studying at the Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Gurukulam Group of Institutions and I will give life to a 1000 more children when I grow. I want to serve in this mission of service.”
Dr K Sunny Anand – Professor of Paediatrics, Anaesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford School of Medicine, USA spoke from his heart about the magic of compassionate healthcare when he said, “In medicine, during the process of attending to patients, the doctor and patient disappears. Only care, love and compassion remains! There is no feeling of having done something.”
Dr K Sudhakar – Minister of Medical Education, Health and Family Welfare of Karnataka joined the valedictory function along with the other dignitaries. He remarked, “Today, Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai has done what the Government is not able to do. This is no joke – to conduct free heart surgeries! This mission is the only one that offers free healthcare. To me, this is nothing less than a miracle. The Government has to learn from this mission and replicate the Sai’s model. Children with congenital heart defects generally succumb to their struggle and die within a year of birth. This mission of service has reached out to such children, especially the ones below poverty line, and provided free services across three paediatric cardiac care hospitals in the last few years.”