Palliative Care for Advanced Cancer Patients-India

Karunashraya, the "Home of Compassion" that extends palliative care to end stage cancer patients has completed sixteen years of service on 1st May 2015.  It was on this day in 1999 that Karunashraya admitted its first patient. Every year on 1st May Karunashraya celebrates Memorial Day dedicated to the patients, their attenders and past patients attenders or care givers. Our well wishers and volunteers also join in.  It is an evening of entertainent with high tea and patients or attenders who wish to speak are given two minutes each to express themselves. The words spoken at  this time are very touching and one sees that it brings a tear to many an eye in the audience.

Awareness about Karunashraya's services has been spreading and now a steady stream of patients are seeking admission. Since January 2015 a total of 723 patients have been admitted. This does not include the patients being attended to by the Home Care team. To be able to take care of more patients two more wards are being built and this is expected to be competed by March 2016.

At Karunashraya the patients receive not only medical attention to take care of their physical discomforts but also sessions with counsellors to tend to their spiritual as well as mental problems. One such good case study is that of Lakshmi who was suffering with cervical cancer. She was married and had a son and two daughters of which the younger one who was a year old was given away by her husband to an orphanage and adopted by someone . Later, her husband deserted her and married again. He had two children from this second marriage. Lakshmi's son wanted to become a goldsmith and left home to be trained in this field. She was left to bring up her daughter which she found very difficult and this forced her to send her elder daughter who was just 12 years old, to her husband to be taken care of. Here she was treated as a servant , made to do all the housework and not allowed to go out of the house. When she grew older she was married off to a man from Mysore and years later she came to know that she had a  sister who was given away to an orphanage and she managed to trace her and get in touch with her.  Both sisters were very angry with the mother as she had deserted them. When Lakshmi came to know that she was terminally ill she wanted to contact her family members, reconcile with them and die peacefully. The family members on the other hand were not readily willing to come and meet her.  This is when the counsellors stepped in and with their concerted and persistant efforts the family members came together again, met Lakshmi regularly and she died peacefully as she wished to.

The wards in Karunashraya have an ambient atmosphere that helps patients to relax after admission. The nursing staff who look after the patients are taken care of by the senior staff and sisters by making sure theyhave enough entertainment to destress themselves. 

The donations received from you the donors has helped us to maintain the ambience in Karunashraya and to provide food and medicine to the increasing number of patients. On behalf of the benefiting patients and the organisation we  wish to thank all of you, the donors. Do continue to spread the word about our work amongst your friends and family members so that the donations keep coming in.