Amrita Kripa Charitable Hospital
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The Amrita Kripa charitable hospital is located
on the beach road alongside the ashram in Amritapuri.
It serves the coastal villages and the 2600 residents
of Amritapuri, including 1200 hostel students
of the computer institute and 200 construction
workers. Consultations and medicines are free
for the poor. The doctors see about 200 patients
daily but on Devi Bhava days and festivals they
work throughout the night. In all about 6000
patients a month visit the hospital.
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The hospital has an emergency room equipped for cardiac
arrests and asthma attacks and other basic emergency
procedures and a small lab for blood and urine tests.
Blood is also sent to AIMS hospital for more sophisticated
tests.
Medicines are provided through donations from companies,
doctors in private practices and from the branch ashrams.
They are also sent from the USA and Europe.
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The most common serious ailments are asthma,
hypertensive blood pressure, diabetes, tuberculosis,
acidic peptic disease, skin diseases and eye
problems. The damp climate, allergies, high salt
and high cholesterol levels aggravate many problems.
Every month Amma's devotee doctors give specialist
surgeries and at those times patients from distant
villages also come. |
Specialists in gynaecology; endocrinology (especially
diabetes and thyroid problems); skin; ear, nose and
throat; and ophthalmology attend on Sundays.
Two doctors, two trained nurses and three nursing
assistants are in attendance. Up to ten patients stay
in the ward at any given time, including elderly ashramites,
peacefully passing their last years with the kind attention
and care of their younger sisters.
Dr. Ragavendran has been serving Amma for
six years. He says that serving in an ashram
hospital is a wonderful opportunity to combine
spiritual practice with the joy of social service. "We
have to see patients very quickly, because of
the volume of people waiting, there is no limit
really to the time we could spend. Generally
people are only too happy to wait for a blood
test. They are glad something is being done. |
Foreground: Dr. Ragavendran |
For surgical procedures I usually ask people to come
in the evenings when it is less busy. Sometimes a seemingly
fit person has come to us, sent straight from the darshan
hall by Mother Herself. When we examine them and run
a test we find there is a disease."
"But being Mother's ashram we also get many really
hopeless cases, sent by doctors or social workers who
have heard of Mother, and send the people here as a
last resort. Some come from very far away. One day
a man arrived in an ambulance from northern Kerala
and in the ambulance itself he insisted I tell him
he had hope. We see many tragedies here. It keeps us
on our mettle. We never know when someone might receive
that grace of a cure. It does happen. Even in the most
hopeless cases we tell the person to say archana or
to chant mantras. They have that faith, and when they
do spiritual practice it gives them the mental strength
to undergo the mental stress of their condition."
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