Kothacheruvu is a small town adjacent to Puttaparthi. When the corona pandemic started raging across the world nobody much bothered about it in Kothacheruvu. This was in early April 2020, but then as time went by, the town of Kothacheruvu saw more and more cases of covid-19. But after September 2020 the number of cases started reducing and an increasing number of people started going back to work and their businesses.

Arunamma*, staying five kilometres away from the Kothacheruvu town, ran a small informal tailoring shop from her home. Her husband Mallappa was an employee with a government firm. They have no children. With the lockdown restrictions relaxing a little, Mallappa* started going back to work. As the cases of coronavirus started reducing, the population in general became more complacent about the norms of wearing a face mask and social distancing. “We both are educated and we would not let go of the discipline. We would tell everybody to wear a mask and keep a distance from one another. But I admit that it was not always possible to keep a distance from people. My husband works at a place where he has to deal with a variety of people. It would be difficult to know who was infected and who was not. And some of them would follow the guidelines and some would not.

Things went on like that till the first week of October when one day Mallappa got a slight fever. This was followed by a bout of vomiting. “We initially thought that it was a case of food poisoning because we had heard that symptoms of covid-19 were mainly fever, throat infection, and cough,” Arunamma said. But after three days, Mallappa started complaining of breathlessness. This rung alarm bells with Mallappa and Arunamma, because they knew that one of the symptoms of covid-19 was breathlessness.

“Immediately we went to the Government  Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Kothacheruvu,” Mallappa said. The doctors of the PHC performed tests on husband and wife and the results for both of them came positive for covid-19. Both were infected with the coronavirus. In Arunamma’s case, she had no symptoms at all.

“Frankly we do not know where it came from. We were following all the precautions, but I feel it is not always how much you are taking precautions, but also how much everyone around you is taking those precautions,” Mallapa said. “I think one of the persons who would have visited my husband would have had the disease and I would have contracted it from him,” Arunamma added.  

The doctors checked for the oxygen saturation of Mallappa and it was below 90, which was a cause for concern. The sensor returned a similar reading for Arunamma also.

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The State Government of Andhra Pradesh requested assistance from the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust to start a covid-19 treatment centre at the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram.  And on August 20th, 2020, with the Blessings of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, a covid-19 treatment centre was inaugurated. Since then the centre has been providing advanced covid-19 care completely free of charge to all.  Till date, several hundred patients have been treated at the centre.

So when Arunamma and Mallappa tested positive for covid-19 and were showing a decrease in oxygen saturation, the government health officials immediately referred them to the covid centre of SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram.

“We have been staying in Kothacheruvu and I had visited Swami’s hospital once earlier for treatment of my eye. So we knew we will get the best care, completely free of charge.” Says Arunamma.

As they were husband and wife, they were put in the twin sharing room at the centre. Doctors and nurses would visit them frequently to check their temperature and oxygen saturation and give them medicines.

According to the Director, SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram, Dr. Gurumurthy, the covid-19 treatment facility at the hospital provides advanced care to the patients. The treatment centre has 120 beds with a five bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Care is being taken to provide thorough care to all the patients. Nutritious food is being prepared by the Department of Dietary keeping in view the special requirements of the patients suffering from covid-19. "What makes Swami's centre stand out is the fact that not only everything from the food, medicines and the advanced care is provided completely free of charge to all the people, but also it is provided with love and compassion," Dr. Gurumurthy said. 

“We were discussing just now, how it would have been for us had Swami not started this centre. Outside we have heard that some of the private hospitals were charging around Rs. 100,000 a day. As most of the government-run hospitals were running full, we would have been forced to visit a private hospital had Swami’s hospital not been there. How could we have managed then? Swami has saved our lives by starting this centre here,” Arunamma said.

Talking about the care she received at the centre Arunamma said, “There is so much of love in the care provided by the hospital staff.  Also we are being watched over 24 hours by the nurses. They would themselves take care if we require anything. However, if we want anything from our side we just need to press the bell and around five to six nurses and doctors would arrive to check whether we needed anything. Such care will not be available anywhere else,” she said. 

“I just wish that Swami blesses the doctors and nurses working in Swami’s hospital so that they can treat more people like us,” Mallapa and Arunamma said. “ We wish to offer our salutations to the feet of Bhagawan Baba for taking care of us. It is a great good fortune for both of us that we were born in the birthplace of Swami and could have His Darshan. Until our last breaths we will not forget the service done to us,”  they concluded.

Jai Sai Ram