CanSupport was founded by Harmala Gupta in 1996. It grew out of her personal experience as a cancer survivor and as a support person for others. In 1991, Harmala had started the first cancer support group in India, Cancer Sahyog. She along with fellow survivors and caregivers began visiting cancer clinics in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital (IRCH) in Delhi to provide information, practical help and an empathetic listening ear.

Harmala soon realized that the majority of patients (almost two-third) came with advanced disease and, once their cancer treatments had failed, they were more often than not left to fend for themselves. Dr.Abha Saxena, an anesthetist at AIIMS, had just started an outpatient clinic for palliative care in IRCH. The majority of patients referred to her were too sick to keep coming back for a clinical assessment; it was difficult for her to monitor their response to medications and treatments. Dr. Saxena approached Harmala for assistance. The idea of starting a service that would provide palliative care to people with advanced and terminal care in their homes was born. It received reinforcement at around the same time from an unexpected quarter: Mr Shankar Ghose, who headed one of India’s well known corporate houses, approached Harmala for counseling support for one of his young employees, Sumita. He later became a founder member of CanSupport.

Sumita had just been told, after months of chemotherapy, that she had advanced colorectal cancer that had spread all over her body and that she did not have long to live. She was emotionally devastated and in great physical pain. For pain relief, she had to make frequent visits to the palliative care clinic at IRCH for oral morphine. As time went on, these visits became unbearable as she was severely emaciated and was violently sick most of the time.

During the months that followed, Harmala developed a close personal rapport with Sumita and accompanied her to faith healers all over the country as she prayed desperately for a cure. Seeing Sumita's anguish and suffering, and as a result of several conversations during which Sumita expressed the need for a service that would bring care medical and nursing care and counselling to the doorstep of people like her, Harmala’s determination to start a home-based palliative care service grew. Before she died, Sumita left a grant of one lakh rupees to start the service.

The arrival of a palliative care nurse from the UK, Ruth Wooldridge, helped take the process forward. A meeting with the director of AIIMS, Dr P K Dave, and the head of IRCH, Dr. Vinod Kochupillai, launched a three month pilot project to bring care to the homes of 6 patients with terminal cancer. So positive was the response, that in no time at all more patients began to be referred to CanSupport and more staff became a necessity. Till then, Harmala was the honorary counsellor-cum-navigator and Ruth was the nurse-cum-driver.

HOME CARE: Sr. Agnes Panikulam, a Medical Mission religious sister with experience in grief and bereavement counseling, and Sr. Leonarda Lakra, another religious sister, with a background in community nursing, were the first home care employees. Soon after, a general physician, Dr. Jain, joined the team. They formed the first paid inter-disciplinary home care team and this remained the pattern for the composition of all subsequent teams: a doctor, a nurse and a counsellor.
Today, CanSupport’s home-based palliative care programme has ten teams that operate out of six field centres and look after 500 patients living in all parts of Delhi as well as in Gurgaon, NOIDA and Faridabad.

HELPLINE: It may be mentioned, that along with the home care programme, CanSupport volunteers (including a few founding members) received training from two nurses from the UK, Kate Moberley and Jane Grose, to man a confidential telephone helpline. The purpose was to provide information, emotional support and referrals to those struggling with a diagnosis of cancer. This helpline continues to operate and is today manned by trained CanSupport staff who continue to receive back up from our volunteers in terms of training, evaluation and monitoring.

DAY CARE: CanSupport’s daycare programme began in 2002 when the Slum & Jhuggi Jhompri (JJ) Department of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), offered space to CanSupport in South Delhi. Initially, patients under the home care programme were brought in with their caregivers for a few hours of friendship, rest and relaxation by home care staff and volunteers. However, a majority of them were too sick to travel and so gradually the service was extended to include children and adults under treatment at AIIMS & IRCH. They continue to come in on Mondays and on Fridays for a couple of hours to receive some tender loving care from CanSupport’s dedicated and talented volunteers.

PEER SUPPORT: Peer support group meetings, also known as “drop in” meetings, began to be held once a month around the same time as the daycare began. These continue to be held on the first Wednesday of the month and provide a valuable opportunity to those touched by cancer to come together to share experiences and feelings in a confidential and empathetic environment. These meetings are chaired by a trained facilitator.

TRAINING: CanSupport also offers training in palliative care to doctors, nurses, counselors, nursing aides and volunteers. The Foundation Course in Palliative Care, which is held jointly with IRCH once a year, was a CanSupport initiative started in 2001 by David Mazza, a visiting doctor from the UK, who spent a year with CanSupport as a Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) volunteer. Since then, CanSupport staff, who have become trainers themselves, run regular courses in the medical and nursing and psycho-social aspects of palliative care.