In May 2003, Shanti Mandir started a mobile health clinic – Shanti Arogya Mandir, to provide primary health care at people’s doorsteps, and to create health awareness in the rural population of villages surrounding its ashram at Magod, in Valsad district of Gujarat State.

Swami Nityananda envisages this mobile dispensary will also play a role in educating people about health and nutrition, hygiene, garbage disposal and compost, potable water, sanitation and the prevention of environmental pollution. With its full time post-graduate medical doctor and staff, the mobile clinic travels daily to local villages offering on-site free medical advice and medication to the ailing and the needy. It also offers afternoon consultations on the ashram premises. The most common ailments encountered are leprosy, tuberculosis, scabies, asthma, skin infections and, in the monsoon season, gastroenteritis, typhoid and malaria. The dispensary also comes across many neglected geriatrics in need of medical assistance. Every Monday, the clinic visits the vrudh ashram (old age home) in Attar.

More than 11,700 patients have been provided free medical aid, which includes medical consultation and drugs.  About 2,000 consultations have taken place at the ashram clinic.

Eye Camps: Twice yearly, Shanti Mandir’s global resources are mobilized to organize Eye Camps where, regardless of their caste, creed or affiliation, needy people are treated for eye-diseases. The Eye Camps are organized from the Shanti Mandir ashram in Kankhal to serve neighboring districts and States.

There is a shloka in Katho Upanishad: Tamso Ma Jyotir Gamaya – Lead me from darkness to light; which powerfully inspires Shanti Mandir volunteers.

This prayer is a continuous beacon for Shanti Mandir to continue its sponsorship of Eye Camps in association with GMC Eye Hospital, Haridwar.  Shanti Mandir has organized eleven free Eye Camps since 1998.  So far more than 5000 men, women and children have been examined, and either prescribed medication, eye glasses or asked to return for surgery the following day.  To date, 1263 patients have undergone successful Intra-Ocular Lenses (IOL) surgery to remove cataracts and restore their vision.

The success rate of all surgery performed to date is one hundred per cent.

Health Care Management, a magazine published by Indian Express, has reported in their issue of October 31, 2002, that the Government of Maharashtra has decided to discontinue rural eye camp surgeries because of their extremely low success rate of 37.8 per cent. The inferior results are reportedly due to the low technological level, substandard quality of surgery, and poor postoperative care. In each eye camp organized by Shanti Mandir, due care is taken in all these areas. Swami Nityananda’s unfailing attention to each minute detail ensures that the patients receive a consistently high standard of specialist care – diagnostic, operative, as well as post-operative.  The camps cover free meals, consultation, medication and transport to the hospital for surgery.