CanSupport, a registered cancer charity, runs a pediatric day care center for outpatients of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, every Monday.

Objectives

The motivating thought is as powerful as it is simple:

    - The children need a break from the relentless demands of the disease – a place that offers them the opportunity of self-expression under the encouraging eyes of resource people who could be arts & crafts teachers or playwrights who work with children.

    -  The caregivers can rest and exchange information – about cancer, medication, doctors, aid or just the stories of their lives.

Activity Definition

The center organizes picking up the children and their caregivers from the hospital after they have seen their doctor and undergone their tests. They are brought to the center where there is structured activity for an hour for the children, while caregivers interact in a separate area, after which everyone has something to eat. The children then play among themselves until they are ferried back to hospital in time for their reports and chemotherapy. Donors have made some medication available for the children, which helps to alleviate (in some small way) the financial burden on the family.

An arena for collaborative-support

What makes the day care effective is the manner in which this “space” of 3 hours is used by the many people who come specially to inhabit it – the children, caregivers and volunteers

The entire day care is run by volunteers. All the wherewithal is donated – be it transportation, food or medicine. The day care gives caring citizens an opportunity to join the battle in a supportive & non-intimidating environment by becoming intimate with the patients and understanding their disease.

It brings the community in close touch with cancer and reduces the isolation of the patient and his or her family.

The caregivers are able to talk about their cares and lives in a non-threatening environment. They pool their information and their feelings of hope for a future without cancer for their children. When a parent whose child is in remission joins them, it makes the everyday worry, frustration and disruption of life ‘okay’, because they have living proof of the success of medicine.

The children are in the center of our interest. Almost all of them are not able to go to school. For them, the day care center held once a week fills the need for interaction with their peers. Many of them have become friends during the long hours spent waiting in the hospital. They renew and strengthen these relationships in the pleasant environs of the center. All the caregivers remark about how upbeat the children are about going to the hospital on Monday !!

A typical Volunteer Day Care Roster for Monday

Bus-time donated by neighboring school to pick up & drop children:

    -  5 volunteers

    -  1 resource person [artist / dancer to work with children]

    -  Food donated by well-wishers

    -  Medicines donated by well-wishers

    -  No. of  patients        10-15

    -  No. of  caregivers     15

The activities of the day care center have been extended to Fridays to include adult patients and their caregivers from Dharamsalas [guest-houses for out of town patients who are not admitted in hospital]. The patients come with members of the family who include children. They have special needs – there is an intense feeling of isolation since they are away from home in an alien city fighting a disease that brings both fear and daily tribulations. This is their time to bond and relax away from the oppressiveness of the hospitals, outpatients wards and the barrenness of dormitories in a dharamsala.

The resource people, all volunteers, teach relaxation techniques like yoga, Reiki, breathing exercises, etc. Everybody eats lunch together before going back. There is a plan to provide these families with dry food rations so as to ease the financial burden they carry.