07/12/2025
What are the options that migrant and financially weak people have, who suddenly find that they may a cancer diagnosis. Away from their home town or village, with no significant social support structure in an alien town, how difficult is it for such people to take care of their finances, not miss work days while also doing hospital runs, undergo treatment, endure the symptoms of a disease that requires concerted and expensive treatment, and also maintain their emotional and psychological health.
These were some thoughts that came to our minds when a 41-year-old patient with possible oropharynx cancer came to the Ganga Prem Hospice OPD on a Sunday. He and his wife had been making the rounds of the oncology department of a busy, government-run hospital in Rishikesh, a biopsy had been done and their next hospital visit date was three weeks later. Afraid of how they would live with the patient’s weakening condition for another three weeks, they came to Ganga Prem Hospice to find succor, having been guided by their landlord to the service. They wanted admission at the hospice, while what they needed was swift and comprehensive oncological assessment and treatment.
The GPH team administered the patient medication for pain relief, counselled them about how to go about obtaining an EWS card, consulted the hospice’s senior doctors for his condition, gave the patient liquid food diet for some sustenance and put out an easy chair out in the sun for him to rest. His upset and worried wife was served breakfast by the kitchen team. She insisted she was not hungry, but the team understood she was in need of physical strength and good nourishment to carry the heavy burden of caregiving.
From the GPH nurse and the pharmacist, to the administrator and kitchen staff, over six GPH employees were at hand to give care to the patient. With the increasing cancer burden and patient load in the country, is India in a position to provide care to each and every citizen suffering from cancer and arrest the disease with treatment, while it is still in curative stages? How many patients go on to become untreatable just because there wasn’t a slot for them in the long line for a diagnostic test, surgery or therapy. When one sees the human cost of this burden, one can only feel anguish. Still, we must continue making the little difference that we can - one life at a time.
