Poetic justice indeed, that possibly, the only news picked up by the antennae of the CCP-PLA ship that has just departed after muscling its way to Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, must have been that of a successful ‘surgical strike’ jointly conducted by India and Sri Lanka- against congenital heart disease in the island nation in nearby Batticaloa! Life-saving surgeries for these hapless children were getting delayed by the unprecedented crisis on every front that has engulfed Sri Lanka; and Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani of India, the only dedicated child heart care hospital chain in the world providing totally free of cost services, rose to the occasion. Battling all odds, the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Hospital, Sri Lanka, was gotten ready and inaugurated in Batticaloa, just up the eastern coast from Hambantota. To the utter relief of parents, child heart surgeries are set to start in its newly minted operation theatre by Dr Ragini Pandey and her surgical team from Sanjeevani of Raipur, India.

Having set up the South Pacific’s first child heart care hospital sans billing section, in Fiji, in April 2022, Sanjeevani’s next global footprint has been in the troubled island nation of Sri Lanka. On August 9, in a simple ceremony in the humble hamlet of Dharmapuram in Batticaloa, which is home to 30,000 war widows and their children, Aravinda de Silva, who scripted Sri Lanka’s cricketing victory in the 1996 World Cup, inaugurated the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Hospital of Sri Lanka set up by the Sri Sathya Sai Karunanilyam Foundation. Good Samaritans from across the world, led by social and spiritual leader, Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai of  India, academics from the Eastern University of Sri Lanka, representatives of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and Government and Consul General of the Indian High Commission were present at the inauguration. The President of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe, sent his government's heartfelt gratitude to Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai leading the international community spearheading the mission. Phase one of the hospital consists of a 28-bed child heart care wing to provide life-saving surgery to Sri Lankan children with congenital heart disease; literally a Gift of Life.

The story of Sanjeevani, Sri Lanka, goes back to the nineteen eighties. S. Tharmaratnam, a kindly UN official from Sri Lanka, moved by the plight of women widowed by the civil war and their children, donated land on the Batticaloa coast and built there fifty houses with the help of the local Catholic church. Sadly, just before handing over the project, he succumbed to a heart attack. It was left to his son, T. Sutharshanom, barely out of his teens, to handle matters. The grieving beneficiaries of the project named the settlement Dharmapuram in memory of his father.

Sutharshanom went on to become a chartered accountant in the Far East, but his heart was always in Dharmapuram. He and his wife, Selena, of Chinese origin, were part of a group that supported the service activities of Sathya Sai Baba, sometimes described as ‘the poor man’s God’; for all his initiatives were for the poor and needy. A few years ago, Sutharshanom learnt that Baba’s students led by a mystic, now known as Sadguru Madhusudan Sai, were launching similar service initiatives after Baba’s passing. He met Sri Madhusudan Sai and implored him to help the women and children of Dharmapuram and offered the family estate of a hundred acres.

Land of fifty acres was accepted and the Sri Sathya Sai Karunanilayam Foundation was set up, with the help of like-minded Sri Lankans such as Penelope Jayawardene, Deepal Wickremasinghe, Nisantha Dissanayake and  Hettiarachchige Marie Gunawardana. The Foundation, supported by others including tea planter and solar energy maker Gary Seaton of Australia and team, has been rendering yeoman service to the needy, in particular, marginalised women and children.

Under the aegis of the Foundation, students in the Dharmapuram primary school have been served breakfast every day. In addition, all over Batticaloa, since September 2015, bananas and milk are being served daily to primary school students to complement the breakfast meal provided by the government. Ironically, it was in 2017-  the very year that debt-ridden Sri Lanka had to sadly mortgage the territory of Hambantota port to their creditor, that the Sri Sathya Sai Karunalayam Medical Centre came up in Batticaloa, under the leadership of Sadguru Madhusudan Sai of India, offering succour through free healthcare services. To date, over 16,000 patients have been treated, totally free of cost.

The medical centre became the talk of the town as patients received the best of treatment with compassion; they were welcomed with a hot cup of tea and were given a freshly prepared tasty nutritious meal before they returned home. Gradually, more speciality units were added. Some children who came for treatment were found to have congenital heart disease. Some of them were operated upon at the children’s hospital in Colombo and some were flown to Sathya Sai Sanjeevani in India; all free of cost.

This experience brought Team Karunanilayam face to face with the fact that congenital heart disease was the main cause of infant deaths in Sri Lanka. Yearly, around 3000 Sri Lankan children are born with congenital heart disease. Many succumb to it as surgery in private hospitals is prohibitively expensive; and treatment at the national free public hospital, Lady Ridgewood Hospital (LRH), Colombo, means a wait of 6 to 18 months. LRH grapples with 10,000 to 12,000 new referrals every year, besides having to handle 20,000 follow-up patients.  Though LRH has 900 beds, it has only 45 beds in cardiothoracic wards and 14 beds in cardiothoracic ICUs. The lack of human resources and infrastructure is a perennial problem.

Team Karunanilayam, therefore, decided to expand the Dharmapuram hospital into a tertiary care hospital, with paediatric cardiac facilities following the Sathya Sai Sanjeevani model. Sanjeevani shared the know-how. Work, begun in June 2019, accelerated as kind folk like the Anugraham Trust of the UK chipped in with funds. The pandemic, however, brought work to a grinding halt. The team then took to supplying lunch and medicines to all the needy around; over 32,000 lunches were handed out to be precise. Just as things restarted, came the devastating economic crisis that is still plaguing the island nation. But, as C. Sreenivas, who heads Sanjeevani globally, said, “Man’s adversity is God’s opportunity.” Team Karunanilayam doggedly continued; for the delay in getting the hospital going would dash the hopes of parents with children who urgently needed surgery to survive. LRH not only graciously guided Sanjeevani Sri Lanka through formalities and paperwork but also helped by the screening of children to select those who needed urgent surgery. Paediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Ragini Pandey and team from Sanjeevani Raipur flew in on August 1, 2022, determined to do their best to save these children, when nothing but uncertainty hung in the air.

Overcoming all challenges, a state-of-the-art paediatric cardiac operating theatre, ICU and step-down-ICU, and 28 dedicated paediatric cardiac beds were readied for the inauguration. The rest of the aesthetically designed, 99,000 square-foot, 75-bed Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Multi Speciality Hospital hospital, all but ready and waiting to be commissioned later this year after all procedural formalities, will have separate outpatient and inpatient blocks; a 2,500 square-foot canteen to serve food for free for all outpatients and relatives, and Doctors’ quarters and support service buildings. The general medicine, gynaecology, paediatric, dental, ophthalmology and gastroenterology units will have added inpatient facilities now; and all services will continue to be offered absolutely free of cost at this hospital.

During the inauguration, a memorandum of collaboration was also exchanged between the Karuna Nilayam Foundation and the Eastern University of Sri Lanka, represented by Vice Chancellor Dr Kanakasingham to further sociocare initiatives, research into public health issues and promote local traditional nutrition solutions for children and integrated health solutions for non-communicable diseases. For a start, during the inauguration, locally prepared traditional nutrition packages were gifted to pregnant women and toddlers in the community.

For the women of Dharmapuram, Sanjeevani means more employment and a better life. For children with congenital heart disease and their desperate parents, the hospital is a boon. For Team Sanjeevani, supporters from  LRH and international volunteers, all inspired by the thought of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam - the world is one family- it is one more opportunity to love all and serve all. A visible example - a poor couple carrying their sick child,  hitchhiked on foot and in lorries bringing construction materials to the hospital site as public transport has all but ground to a halt in the fuel-starved nation. They have been lovingly put up in a hotel by Sanjeevani. Indeed as the little ones awaiting surgery and their parents arrive, they are being cared for in the Sanjeevani spirit of ‘Rogi Narayana Hari’ (the patient is God); even as the surgical team, ready to operate, awaits final clearance from a grateful government, to begin their noble task. Clearly, compassion beyond the call of duty is at the heart of this ‘surgical strike’ in Sri Lanka.

dr.hiramalini.seshadri@gmail.com