Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's first initiatives in the field of medical care began with the Sri Sathya Sai General Hospital (SSSGH), Prasanthi Nilayam that was inaugurated on 4th October 1956 as a 12-bed facility for serving the poor in Puttaparthi and the surrounding villages. The motto was to give free healthcare to all patients who came to it.With passing years, the demand for the services offered by the hospital grew and patients came from all over Anantapur District and even adjoining areas and other states. The SSSGH grew over years from a single room dispensary to a sizeable general hospital with 90-bed capacity treating ailments of orthopaedics, ophthalmology, obstetrics and gynaecology amongst others. The out-patient department now handles around 600 patients a day on an average.

In 1976, a second hospital, Sri Sathya Sai General Hospital (SSSGH), Whitefield was opened by Baba in Bangalore. Since the inception of the hospital lakhs of patients have benefited without having to spend their meagre income due to medical deficiencies.

Despite recent advances in the field of medical sciences and technology, the prohibitive cost of healthcare, especially tertiary care, has taken many of these life-saving measures out of the reach of the common man. In response to this situation, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba founded the Sri Sathya Sai Medical Trust in September 1991 to set up super-specialty hospitals to provide quality medical care at the tertiary level to needy patients irrespective of caste, creed and religion.

First venture of Sri Sathya Sai Medical Trust into provision of high tech tertiary medical care was in form of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Puttaparthi in November 1991 providing state-art-of the art tertiary medical care absolutely free of cost to all who came to its portals. This was inaugurated by Late Sri P.V. Narashimha Rao, the then Honorable Prime Minister of India. This super specialty hospital caters to diseases of Cardiology, Urology and Ophthalmology.

With success of the super specialty venture in Andhra Pradesh, Government of Karnataka wanted Baba to start another super specialty hospital in Bangalore and offered 53 acres of land to build a super specialty hospital in suburbs of Bangalore. Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Bangalore was inaugurated on 19th January 2001 by the then honorable Prime Minister Sri Atal Behari Vajpayee. This super specialty hospital caters to specialties of Cardiac and Neurosciences.