There are more than two million people suffering from cancer in India today and half-a-million die each year due to the illness. That’s largely because many patients do not have access to early detection and treatment services and also due to increased tobacco use. Now a cancer survivor from Mumbai is getting help from the American Cancer society to fight the menace back home.

In 1993, Vandana Gupta was diagnosed with stage 3 hodgkins, a deadly form of cancer. For her the end was in sight. Vandana Gupta, Cancer Survivor told SAW, “There were times when I had become very suicidal and we live on the 13^th floor and there were enough temptations for me to jump out because I thought it wasn’t really worth it.”

Today, Vandana is glad she did not give up. After endless chemotherapy sessions, the 42-year-old mother of two managed to beat the illness. This week, wearing her survivor’s band, Vandana joined more than ten thousand other cancer survivors from across the US in the nation’s capital. As part of the American Cancer Society’s advocacy program, she is learning skills that she hopes to use to run her own cancer support group called V-care back in Mumbai.

Vandana says,  “The idea of the organization was to provide emotional support. But in India, emotional support is different from what we understand here in the west. There people wanted to know where they could get money for treatment or what food to eat.”

The American Cancer Society is trying to provide those answers in India with an initial investment of half-a-million dollars. ACS’s training programs in Chennai are giving local health care professionals the tools to help patients detect, and survive cancer.

Shalini Vallabhan, Director, Asia Cancer Control Strategies (ACS), “We are continuing to focus on tobacco use and reduce tobacco use. We want to improve the quality of life for cancer patients. Many times, the reality is, if they are in rural India, they may not get access to treatment, so we need to make sure that their pain and symptom management is addressed.”

That’s a mission Vandana Gupta says she will carry forward in India. For now, she has proudly inscribed her name on this giant Wall of Hope along with others who also beat the disease.

Prerna Kumar