Satya’s life revolved around three pivots. At home were his aged parents, taking care of whom meant everything to him. Second was his job as a salesperson for an elevator company, which kept him busy most of the day, and third, his passion for the sport of cricket. He would play cricket on his weekly offs or whenever he could finish his sales rounds a bit sooner than usual.

It was an ordinary day in January. After finishing his work, Satya reached home early and after tending to his parents, went out to play cricket with his friends. But that one day was going to throw his life out of gear. “I was playing cricket when I witnessed a blur on the top of my left eye. It was not something in my eye or something like that. I felt it was something inside my eye. I did not think much of it then and continued with my routine activities,” Satya said, talking about his first brush with the ailment. Satya noticed that the blur in his eye started spreading “It started causing me discomfort,” Satya said.

Satya’s job of marketing, involved constant travel to various clients and visiting a doctor, therefore, meant cancelling some of his appointments with his clients. Yet, when his eye started giving him a lot of trouble, he decided that once and for all he must know what the matter was with his eye.

First he visited the local General Hospital. “There the doctors after checking my eye told me that I needed to visit an Ophthalmology specialist for treatment,” 

“Near our town we have an ophthalmology doctor and the other option was visiting the Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences in Puttaparthi. As Puttaparthi was about 80 kms from my town and it was difficult for me take days off from my job, I decided to visit the local eye specialist first. The specialist told me that there was a problem with my eye nerve and gave me some medicines. I used the medicines for a few weeks and I could not see any perceptible change in the situation. I started having my doubts whether the treatment was helping me,” Satya said.

“One more thing which bothered me was the fact that the interaction was always top down. I was told what to do and I had to do the same. I could not ask any kind of doubts. There were many questions that I had in my mind, but could not ask for clarification,” he said.

By this time Satya started losing vision in his left eye. Then he decided that it was better to visit SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram.

“I did not feel the treatment in my town was helping me. And also being tech savvy I would read up about my problem and realized that the problem was more complex than what had been told to me. I, therefore, decided that the best option for me was to visit Swami’s hospital in Puttaparthi,” Satya said.

Taking a break from his work, Satya reached SSSIHMS, Prasanthigram. In the hospital he was first screened at the Screening and Registration Block. Dr. Ashwita checked him first and realized that it was a complex problem. She, therefore, referred him to a Senior Ophthalmologist, Dr. Girija Gurung, in the department’s Retina section.

According to Dr. Girija Gurung, the patient had presented with very low vision of about counting fingers and was diagnosed to have Vireous h'ge+tractional detachment secondary to Eales' Vasculitis for which he underwent PPV+EL+Silicone Oil injection. Post surgery patients has been recovering well and on follow up with our hospital. 

“I was clearly told that the recovery would take a long time, but I already feel there is improvement in my left eye vision,” Satya said.

“Apart from the high-end treatment, which I received at Swami’s hospital, what really impressed me was the way the doctors and the nurses behave with the patients in the hospital. It was never about ‘you have to listen to what we say,’, rather, at every moment I would ask questions about my condition and the doctors would answer all the questions with a lot of patience. I actually felt that I was an equal partner in the treatment, rather than a passive recipient. In my opinion this is how treatment should be elsewhere also.

Speaking about the concept of free healthcare Satya said that in the current age where commercialism was running the show in the healthcare sector, it is hospitals like SSSIHMS that stand as a beacon of hope for many patients. “I belong to a middle class family and I am able to take care of my parents with the salary I get, but if I am burdened with an additional medical expenditure, I would not know how to arrange for that much money. But the situation would be far worse for patients who are daily wage workers. Where will they get the money required for such treatment? It is Sai Baba’s blessing that all who walk into the portals of this hospital get high-end medical care totally free of charge. I would like to thank Swami for that and hope some people take inspiration from this hospital and start similar hospitals elsewhere in India,” Satya said.