Centre providing free shelter, food to children with cancer, caregivers opened in Manipal

Kasturba Medical College, Manipal and Kasturba Hospital, MAHE, Manipal, in association with the Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology inaugurated AccessLife MAHE Manipal Centre (Home away from home for children with cancer and their caregivers).

It provides free accommodation, nutrition, counselling and education support services to children with cancer and their caregivers. The home, AccessLife MAHE Manipal Centre, is located opposite Energy Cell, near BQ Road, Madhavanagar, in Manipal.

Access Life Assistance Foundation, India, is a non-profit organisation registered company, providing multi-disciplinary supportive care to families who come to the cancer centre for their child’s cancer treatment.

Speaking after its inauguration, Ranjan R Pai, Chairman, Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG), Bengaluru, said that the centre provides holistic care to children and their caregivers belonging to lower socio-economic strata while the cancer treatment is ongoing in the hospital.

The centre will also provide an avenue for volunteers from this region to step up and engage themselves with these children and families to make their journey through cancer treatment more pleasant, he said.

MAHE Pro-Chancellor Dr H S Ballal said, “Childhood cancers being curable, the centre aims at reducing treatment abandonment and refusal by the caregivers due to financial and social reasons by providing these facilities which reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure during cancer treatment while the hospital continues to help these children with treatment through various funds and schemes."

M D Venkatesh, Vice-Chancellor, MAHE, said that MAHE signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the foundation as more than two-thirds of children with cancer taking treatment in the Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology of Kasturba Hospital were coming from rural interiors of Karnataka.

MAHE provides two residential quarters close to the hospital and Access Life Assistance Foundation renovated it and made it into a hygienic accommodation which can host 12 families at any given time, he added.

Ankeet Dave, co-founder and executive director of Access Life Assistance Foundation, also spoke on the occasion.