Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Puttaparthi

The Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Puttaparthi, is a completely free 300-bed tertiary care medical centre based in Prasanthigram, on the outskirts of Puttaparthi town, Andhra Pradesh. The hospital was founded by Sri Sathya Sai Baba, a spiritual guru and philanthropist who is revered as God by His devotees. The hospital was inaugurated on the November 22, 1991 and endeavours to provide high-end healthcare to the patients free of charge.^[1]

The hospital is a part of the social welfare initiatives under the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust founded by Sri Sathya Sai Baba as a public charitable trust in 1972.^[2]

The hospital provides free out-patient as well as in-patient treatment in the fields of Cardiology, Cardio Thoracic Vascular Surgery, Urology, Plastic Surgery, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics and Gastroenterology (Endoscopy). Patients from all over India, and even from India’s neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan visit the hospital for treatment. The hospital celebrated its 22nd anniversary on the 22nd November 2013.^[3] Till date the hospital has seen around 2.9 million out-patients and performed 215,971 surgeries and procedures.^[4]

History

The hospital started with the department of Cardiology and Cardio Thoracic Vascular Surgery initially and then on new departments were added in the following years. The following table provides the dates of inauguration of the specialties at the hospital.^[5]

Core values

The human rights based approach as defined by the WHO is “means integrating human rights norms and principles in the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of health-related policies and programmes. These include human dignity, attention to the needs and rights of vulnerable groups, and an emphasis on ensuring that health systems are made accessible to all.^[6] The core values as delineated by Sai Baba seem to go further than the definition of given by WHO in that respect. These core values form the work ethic in the hospital. They are as under:^[7]

• Universal healthcare

Sri Sathya Sai Baba has emphasized that state-of-the-art health care should be available to all people and especially the poor.

• Free healthcare

Sai Baba has said that medical care should be delivered free of charge to all.

• Loving and compassionate healthcare

Health care should be administered with love and compassion. The human agents of this delivery system (healthcare administrators, doctors, nurses, technicians, etc.) should be perfectly humane in thought, word and deed. They should demonstrate the use of five principles of Human Values: Sathya (Truth), Dharma (Right Conduct), Shanti (Peace), Prema (Love) and Ahimsa (Non-violence).

• Comprehensive healthcare

Ideal healthcare encompasses treatment of the body, mind and spirit. The practice of medicine should address the complete patient and not merely relegate itself to the disease process.

• Preventive healthcare

The duty of the physician is not only to treat with love and compassion but to educate patients in healthy living and thus prevent frequent visits to physicians and hospitals.

Services provided

Cardiology

With complex procedures being performed free of cost, patients visit the department from all over the country. The invasive cardiac set up of the department has 2 fully equipped top-of-the-line flat panel catheterisation labs with hemodynamic recorders. A 16 bedded Critical Care Unit (CCU) is equipped with patient monitors networked with a central station, ventilators, infusion pumps, ECG and echo machines, defibrillators, portable X-Ray and imaging units. Patients mostly belong to economically weaker sections of the society, who could not have afforded the cost of the treatment elsewhere.^[8]

Cardiothoracic vascular surgery

The CTVS department in the hospital conducts all types of cardiac surgeries, except heart transplants. One-third of the cardiac surgeries are congenital heart diseases, one-third valve replacements/repair and the remaining, coronary revascularizations with 90% of them being off-pump procedures.^[9]

Urology

All major surgeries of the kidney, bladder, ureter, prostate, and urethra are performed at the department. Further, endoscopic surgeries like TUR, ‘P’/URSL/, PCNL/ CYTOSCOPY/VIU are performed for prostate, stones and strictures. Open surgeries for stone, cancer of the kidney, bladder, prostate and stricture of urethra are also undertaken by the department. There are three operation theatres, a urology ward, an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), OPD supplemented with urodynamic equipment and Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripter (ESWL). The Urology ward has 72 beds.^[10]

Ophthalmology

The department of Ophthalmology has three operation theatres, a laser unit and a 42-bed ward. Ailments treated in the department include, refractive errors, cataracts, glaucoma, diseases of the retina, strabismus, diseases of the eyelid and neuro-ophthalmological disorders.^[11]

Plastic surgery

The Plastic Surgery department provides treatment for congenital defects and acquired conditions as follows: Congenital conditions include cleft lip, cleft palate, hypospadias, epispadias, deformities and defects. Acquired conditions include, contractures due to burns, accidents, snake bites and infective conditions and neoplasms – benign and malignant especially in the face, breast etc.^[12]

Orthopaedics

The department has 3 modular operation theaters. An 8-bedded post-operative recovery room is attached to it. Currently, eight major surgeries are done a day, adding up to around 11,000 surgeries from the inception of the department. The surgeries performed include:^[13]

• Total Joint Replacements
• Arthroscopic Surgeries
• Spine
• Ilizarov
• Paediatric orthopaedics
• Complex deformity corrections
• Trauma including Pelvic and Acetabular

Gastroenterology (endoscopy)

Currently basic Endoscopy and colonoscopy services are being provided at the unit.^[14]

Statistics

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, , Prasanthigram, Puttaparthi:^[15] Cumulative: November 22, 1991 – October 31, 2014

Academics

The hospital is accredited by the National Board of Examination, India to provide Diplomate of National Board (DNB) training to doctors in the specialties of Cardiology, Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Surgery (CTVS), Urology, Ophthalmology, Anaesthesiology and Orthopaedics. The hospital has earned two gold medals in the DNB courses of Urology and Ophthalmology. Dr. N.N. Sridharan received the Gold Medal for DNB Urology in 2004^[16] and Dr. Amit Chabbra received the DNB Gold Medal in the 2010.^[17]

The hospital has periodic academic sessions in which doctors from the hospital and from outside share their knowledge on specific topics of academic interest with the doctors and students.SSSIHMS, Puttaparthi, also receives visiting professors from India and abroad who provide their expertise in their specific subjects to the students. The students are exposed to a spectrum of cases, as the hospital is charitable in nature. The number of candidates admitted for training in this Institute every year is two each for cardiology, urology, ophthalmology, anaesthesiology and orthopaedics. The DNB training for these departments is 3 years. Two candidates are admitted to the department of CTVS. The period of training in CTVS being 6 years post MBBS.

National Board of Examination(NBE)guidelines are adhered to with respect to stipend, library, internet facilities etc.

Interestingly, the hospital does not collect Rs. 50,000/- a year from trainees as training charges/fee as prescribed by the NBE, since it is run by the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, which functions on the philosophy of Sri Sathya Sai Baba that education and health should be provided completely free to all.^[18]

Conferences and Seminars

Various departments of the hospital organize yearly conferences which are attended by faculty members and delegates from across the country and sometimes from nations across the world. Most recently the department of Cardiology conducted the Advanced Echo Cardiology Conference in the on October 11 and 12, 2014 in collaboration with GE healthcare. This conference is a part of a series on Echocardiography conferences, which take place alternately between the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram and Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Whitefield. The faculty members at the conference included Dr. R. Alagesan Former President of Indian Academy of Echocardiography, Dr. G. Vijayraghavan, Vice –chairman and founder director, Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences, Dr. P. K. Das, HoD Cardiology of SSSIHMS, Whitefield.^[19] www.youtube.com/user/sssihmspsg

List of Conferences and Seminars held at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram, is as given below.

Collaborative research

The hospital in 2012 collaboration with the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam, started the Chondrocyte Cell Culture Laboratory. The research thrust at this facility will explore the possibilities of chondrocyte cell culture in treating knee cartilage defects. It will therefore aid the quality of health of patients by avoiding joint replacement surgeries and the symptoms and costs associated with it.^[20]

IT in Healthcare

From the inauguration of the hospital IT has been integrated in the healthcare delivery process. The hospital started with basic DOS based computer systems for maintenance of the medical records etc. in 1991 then slowly graduated to a stage where the hospital is almost paperless and filmless.^[21] The spectrum of IT in healthcare covers the following areas:

• Inpatient services
• Outpatient services
• Medical Records
• Diagnostic Imaging and Laboratory Services
• Material Management
• Administration

The hospital has also improved communication by widening of the electronic mail, SMS alerts to specific personnel as per the need in the hospital.

Telemedicine

The hospital in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) started satellite based telemedicine and tele-education services from 2007. The satellite link facility was provided by ISRO completely free of charge. Tele-consultation is provided for post-operative follow-up cardiac patients from the states Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal. Two centres have been in Bhubaneshwar (Odisha) and at Barrackpore (West Bengal) have been set up for that purpose. At SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram, the consultant reviews the patient’s past and current records and while speaking to the patient directly over video-conferencing suggests suitable remedies and further investigations if necessary. The best part of this program is that the patient and specialist see and talk to each other directly. The patient, who are generally disadvantaged also avoid the trouble and expenditure of travelling a long distance from Odisha to Puttaparthi.

Apart from Tele-consultation, the Telemedicine Center at SSSIHMS, Puttaparthi, has been playing an active role in supporting the academic programme of the hospital by means of enabling participation in Continuing Medical Education (CME), lectures and discussions with institutions like Sankara Nethralaya (Chennai) and Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre (Chennai).Till date the hospital has participated in 690 such sessions.^[22][23]

Patient Counselling and Follow Up

The hospital has an outreach programme called Sai Rehabilitation Programme, for the discharged patients after a cardiac procedure or surgery with focus on patients.The programme approach is a holistic one, which includes overseeing medication, rehabilitation and integration into society, and as close as possible to the life they were leading before treatment.^[24]

The programme was initiated at SSSIHMS, Puttaparthi, on February 16, 2008 with the permission of Sri Sathya Sai Baba.

To ensure that the patient has easy access to all the above factors for the duration of the rehabilitation programme, the tertiary care centre of SSSIHMS, Puttaparthi, works in tandem with the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations at the State and District levels for implementing the programme. Medical monitoring and management are the key issues. Hence the hospital has taken the lead role in program formatting and implementation with the Sri Sathya Sai Service Organisations (SSSSO) providing local volunteer doctors and other support staff at a district level. This programme is specially structured to cater to the large segment of rural and semi- urban patients with low literacy and economic status to create awareness to follow a structured lifestyle after surgery or intervention. Further, a long term surveillance rehabilitation to help the patients maintain lifestyle changes, lifelong medication compliance and improve their quality of life.^[25]

Hospital architecture

View from the balcony of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram, Puttaparthi

The hospital was set up on 110 acres of land near the Sri Sathya Sai Airport and was designed by Professor Keith Critchlow from the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture in London.^[26] The idea behind The architecture style is a mix of ancient Hindu and Islamic styles, while the arched windows in the hospital are reminiscent of the Palladian style of renaissance architecture.

Inside the Main Dome of SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram, Puttaparthi

At the centre of hospital building is a dome, which is around 82 feet in height and 80 feet in diameter. It is a meditation hall where motifs of all religions are present. In total there are nine major domes in the hospital building, which represent the Hindu divine number 9. The meditation hall is also has 8 sides, which is normally the case with the sanctum sanctorum of Hindu temples across the world as the deity is considered the ruler of all the eight directions. The hospital has a total built-in area of 15,000 square meters.^[27]

Leadership

The first director of the hospital was Dr. A.N. Safaya appointed on November 22, 1991, by Sai Baba who remained as the director till November 2011, when he retired.^[28]

For a brief period Dr. Kumara Swamy Reddy, a pathologist took up the post,^[29] who then left for soon after.

Dr. Choudary D. Voleti a cardiac-surgeon by profession, who had been associated with the hospital as a visiting faculty since 1993 was the director from September 2012 till November 2015.

The current Director of the hospital is Dr. Gurumurthy, a Plastic Surgeon by profession, who had decades of experience in administration of Health Care Institutions.

SSSIHMS Alumni Association

1st Annual Alumni Meet, "Sai Vaidya Sangamam", was organized at the SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram, on 20 and 21 December 2014. The conference saw the participation of over 300 alumni of SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram and Whitefield cutting across the various specialities from all over the country and abroad. The highlight of the meet was the formation of the SSSIHMS Alumni Association.

SSSIHMS Alumni Association Office Bearers

Other Information

Phone: 08555-287388, YouTube: youtube.com/user/sssihmspsg Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sri-sathya-sai-insitute-of-higher-medical-sciences?trk=nmp_rec_act_company_photo Wordpress: sssihmspsg.wordpress.com

References