Email   Print

Hope and healing

Hospital in India offers compassionate care.

more photos

In 1984, a holding tank at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, overheated and released 40 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas, killing some 5,000 people in one of the world’s deadliest industrial accidents. More than 120,000 people in Bhopal still suffer from chronic illnesses and debilities related to the industrial accident including respiratory difficulties, blindness, gynecological disorders and childhood growth problems. Now, the Sambhavna Trust Clinic offers compassionate care to support healing for thousands of people.

Before the clinic opened in 1996, patients typically received steroids, psychotropic drugs and antibiotics, which often failed to address the underlying causes of illness, according to clinic staff. Sambhavna offers traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicine, yoga and allopathic treatments in a tranquil setting.

People fill the waiting rooms and spacious courtyard. Many take yoga classes and receive prescriptions for herbal Ayurvedic remedies made at Sambhavna from the medicinal plants in the clinic’s gardens. Those choosing allopathic medicine can receive care from a general practitioner, a gynecologist and a psychiatrist.

Research by Sambhavna staff suggests that the clinic’s approach is making a difference for many of the 12,000 people who have come through its doors. One study found that more than half of those who took yoga therapy for chronic breathlessness were able to stay off medication they had been taking for a decade.

The clinic’s new facility—made up of guest accommodations, a meeting area available to the community, clinic space and a large, airy yoga hall—is constructed entirely of natural building materials. Traditional design elements include a waterproof thatched roof covering the public meeting space and extensive concrete fretwork, which helps dissipate heat. Underground tanks store rainwater for the dry season, while the clinic’s grey water flows into an irrigation pond for the healing gardens. Photovoltaic panels help supply electricity.

Sambhavna’s lessons may inspire hospitals around the world, says Satinath Sarangi, managing trustee of the Sambhavna Trust, which runs the clinic. “Our experience demonstrates that it is possible to develop safe, simple, inexpensive and effective therapies for injuries caused by industrial chemicals,” Sarangi says. “And that ordinary people in the community can be inspired to take control of their health and bring about real improvement.”