Breast cancer awareness the mission for Roko Cancer
Reported May 20, 2008
It was just another day for 43-year-old south Delhi resident, Meenu Kapoor, when she visited her neighbourhood gurudwara. She, however, came out of the gurudwara knowing that she was free from a dreaded disease. She was one of the 24 women who underwent a free mammogram that day.
Roko Cancer, an initiative that aims to take breast cancer awareness to the masses free of cost, had organised the camp. The initiative, which began in 2005, is managed by a London-based NGO, MKC Trust. The trust is a partner with the UK-based Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research, which is committed to fighting the disease through research and awareness.
“Our main focus is creating awareness about breast cancer and detection. We have covered nine districts in Punjab. We also went to Uttar Pradesh for a month. We have covered 400 villages and organised 30 camps. We taught health workers in the interiors the physical tests to detect any lump,” said Isha Bhandari, director (India Operations), Roko Cancer.
“We are now planning camps in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra,” she said. Campaigns are planned in girls’ colleges too. State-of-the-art mobile cancer detection units are used in the camps. The capital cost of a cancer detection unit is around Rs 1.5 crore. The cost of organising around 25 camps comes to around Rs 6 lakh. The mobile cancer detection unit comprises basic facilities like mammogram units, laboratory, and an examination chamber.
Till date, the organisation has organised 317 camps, examined 15,388 women and 163 of these have been found positive for the disease.
Roko Cancer organises these camps in Delhi with the help of Delhi Sikh Gurudwara management Committee. Its partners include TCL and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.
The organisation, however, faces problems in referrals of the positive cases and funding.
“We face problems in referring the positive cases. We have now got a commitment from the Delhi government to help us organise camps in the government hospital premises. The government has also assured to make arrangements for treatment to those found positive,” said Isha.
“We need more participation from the corporations,” she added.
Emphasising the need to address the situation fast, Jeremy Hughes, CEO, Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research, said corporations could be very helpful as they have a large women workforce as well.
“They should come forward as it is mutually beneficial,” he added.