Helping hand for cancer patients and caregivers

Tucked away in a narrow lane in the interior area of Red Hills, Nampally, Hyderabad, is a nondescript, multi-storeyed building bearing a large board which reads Neenarao Chamakur Satram. Inside is another smaller banner which reads Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations, the name of the charitable organisation which maintains the facility and provides a wide range of services to the inmates.

This might seem yet another one among the long row of buildings in this crowded area of the city. However, to its inmates, this building or Satram aka Sri Sathya Sai Ashrita Kalpa, is a haven and a refuge. The inmates are cancer patients and their caregivers. Here, thanks to the building constructed by Neena Rao Charitable Trust, they receive free accommodation. The rest of their needs are taken care of by the members of the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations, Hyderabad, which provides them food, drinking water, furniture, housekeeping, security, and even counselling, all entirely free of cost.

USA-based doctor and philanthropist Dr Govinda Rao Chamakuru constructed this building for the sake of cancer patients coming to the state-government run MNJ Cancer Hospital in Hyderabad and gifted it to the Telangana Government. This act of charity was done by Dr Govinda Rao under the Neena Rao Charitable Trust which he founded decades ago in the memory of his daughter Neena. This Trust has been giving to education and medicare activities in USA and Hyderabad by undertaking the upgradation of facilities inside government hospitals, gifting of modern medical equipment, etc.

Hundreds of underprivileged cancer patients arrive regularly for treatments like radiotherapy, etc., to MNJ Hospital. However, there is insufficient accommodation for all of them and their caregivers inside the hospital with the result that most of them ended up resting and sleeping on the pavements or under the trees and eating unhealthy food from roadside vendors. Dr Govinda Rao Chamakuru was moved by their plight when this was brought to his attention. Hence, he constructed, at his own cost, this multi-storeyed building for their accommodation, a short distance from MNJ Hospital. It was inaugurated in the summer of 2022.

Once the building was ready, the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations began their work of furnishing the building, and also arranging housekeeping, and providing delicious and nutritious meals for all the inmates. In addition, counselling facilities are provided if needed for any patient and/or his caregiver. This is in keeping with their motto of Service to Man is Service to God. In that spirit, the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations has established two, totally free-of-cost super speciality hospitals in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and subsided education in high-quality schools and colleges around India, free drinking-water facilities benefiting lakhs of people, and thousands of regular free medical camps/clinics across India and several other countries.

Over the two years since the facility became functional, tens of thousands of patients and their attendants have been benefitted, with over a lakh meal being served, and housekeeping services having been provided by volunteer-members from the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations, Hyderabad District. These volunteers work in batches under the supervision of A. Malleshwaram Rao, Hyderabad District President. Ashrita Kalpa has eight large halls named after rivers like Ganga, Yamuna, Manjeera, Chitravathi, etc., and can accommodate a maximum of 200 patients but generally there are, on an average, 100 inmates on any given day. It is open to all needy cancer patients without distinction of caste, creed or region

The very clean, spacious and well-ventilated Ashrita Kalpa is an invaluable support system to cancer patients and their families in their time of crisis. Talking to the inmates one understands why and how. The dreaded disease is not only one fraught with intense physical pain for the patient but also entails a big burden on him/her and his or her caregivers who find they have so many issues to handle, besides treatment-cost.

When any cancer patient is admitted for surgery at any hospital, his family or caregivers have to arrange accommodation and food for themselves. Cancer patients also require that radiation and/or chemotherapy sessions at regular intervals, and for this the patient and caregivers have to commute to hospitals. If they are outstation residents, again, there is the additional concern about finding safe and clean accommodation and food for the patient and caregivers and the efforts of commuting long distances from those points. The same problems crop up when the patient has to undergo follow-up tests, and meet the doctors with the results, since the medical professionals have to monitor the progress of the patient. All this means a heavy toll on the finances, physical effort and time of patients and their families.

Nageshwara Rao from Saroornagar, Telangana has a cancer about which he tells us, in Telugu: "I can’t pronounce the English name, but it is a cancer of the body's lower region. I had a surgery which the government's Arogyasree scheme paid for and I am grateful to the government and the good doctors at MNJ Hospital. But we patients need more than that. I stay in comfort and safety here at Ashrita Kalpa with my wife for a few weeks continuously whenever I am called from Saroornagar as an outpatient for intermittent radiotherapy and chemotherapy sessions and the medical tests that follow. From here, we just take an auto and reach MNJ Hospital in five or 10 minutes for appointments. If I had to travel all the way from Saroornagar every time I had a therapy and test appointment, and also find accommodation and food each time...,” his voice trails off. He implies that all that physical effort and money would have exacerbated his pain and weakened his ability to fight back. "Moreover, the friendly devotees of this guru, Sai Baba (he points to the guru's photo on a nearby wall), who are servicing this facility, talk to us and lift our spirits whenever we feel down."

In another hall, a young couple, we find Jagdish and his wife who have come here from Chhattisgarh. The wife has blood cancer and a surgery scheduled very soon. They are staying here for the past two weeks as they have to visit MNJ Hospital regularly before surgery. Even post-surgery, the patient has to undergo a recuperation period and regular visits to the hospital for check-ups and medical tests. Jagdish says: "We will stay here during that period too. This is a very sad time in our lives. But this facility is helping us bear it with some courage. We even talk to other patients and caregivers around who are in similar circumstances and get advice from them."

Indeed, no one can take away the pain and trauma of cancer, the surgery(ies) and all the therapy sessions that follow. No one can even share the patients' physical suffering from the side-effects and after-effects of all these treatments. However, the Sri Sathya Sai Ashrita Kalpa with its building given by Neena Rao Charitable Trust and the selfless, caring service of the volunteers are going a long way to alleviate the multiple problems of cancer patients and their families.