The hospital, constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 2 billion, is the contribution of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust.

The trust runs a similar super-speciality hospital at Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh. Established in 1991, the AP hospital offers free special attention in the field of cardiac, cardio-thoracic and vascular surgery, besides treatment for kidney and eye related ailments.

The hospital at Whitefield is built on 52.26 acres and will be operational by the end of November, according a spokesperson of the trust. The unique feature of the hospital is that all services will be totally free of cost to the users.

Priority will be accorded to treatment of children, youth and breadwinners of families so that the disease burden to the economy is diminished, the spokesperson said.

A substantial number of the staff will be voluntary. The hospital will have 330 beds and 12 operation theatres and will be equipped to treat close to 1,000 patients each day, according to the trust spokesperson. Hospital expenses will be met through the corpus fund set up for the purpose by the trust from contributions received from India and abroad.

The hospital will be highly eco-friendly in terms of its design, construction and operation. A nursing school is expected to be attached to the hospital with 20 trainees initially. The trust hopes that the hospital will provide tertiary healthcare as well as sophisticated diagnostics and out-patient treatment for two specialities-cardiac and neuro.

The hospital will become full-fledged with full utilisation of services by the second year of its inauguration, the spokesperson said.

IANS