“We reached 2,00,000 women who are not allowed out of their houses with our healthcare services in eight villages along river Hindon. 1759 patients smiling already, your benefaction will cure 1,000 more women.”
“My daughter-in-law cannot come out of the house, she is absolutely alright. Whatever you want to talk about, talk to me only.” This was the first reaction of a woman called Bano, 53 years old, at Khaprana village of Baghpat district in the sugarcane belt of Uttar Pradesh. When team Aaroogya reached her house at 1 PM in the afternoon after our camp services, Bano came out with a ‘ghungat’ covering her face and head. Her warm greetings to the team and delicious ‘kadi-chawal’ made our day. She has six children – and that is the average number of kids for each woman we reached out to. The maximum was 12.
When we finished doing her digital survey on our tablet, she was initially perplexed and denied taking the rest of the service of a clinical check-up, as she expected that she would have to pay a huge fee to us at the end. But, our satisfaction and happiness knew no bounds when she looked overwhelmed and watery-eyed to be able to avail the services for no cost like every other woman in these villages.
Yet, we were taken aback when she gave us her history of being diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. She mentioned that initially, it was like a pea-shaped pimple over her right breast near her right armpit – no pain or irritation, no family history. Six months passed and still, it wasn’t healing. That’s when the pus discharge started. Her daughter-in-law, who had lost her young aunt due to breast cancer, suggested her to ask her husband to take her to a doctor in town. She was too shy even to talk or let anyone know about that part of the body. The aggressive local disease then spread in no time, and her family took notice when she developed a hard bony swelling in the region over her right chest.
The family members and fellow villagers took notice and thought it to be a natural phenomenon and a punishment by ‘God’. Her daughter-in-law again requested for consulting a doctor in town. The village had no doctors and we were very fortunate to be the first health experts to reach there and work. She was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and is currently under chemotherapy after the surgical removal of both the breasts. It did not spread anywhere else by “God’s grace”, they believed. We immediately checked her for a fresh diagnosis to monitor the case.
Next, when we asked her to call her daughter-in-law to the camp, she refused to do so. Her husband said that their daughter-in-law couldn’t step out of the house. On that note, my colleague, Rishabh asked him a witty question in the local dialect of western Uttar Pradesh, “Then how did she go to school and college?” – to which he replied that girls didn’t go to school in their village. There is a school in the next village, but it is too unsafe to send them there. It was unnerving to know. We were even more intimidated.
This further motivated us to democratise a wider reach of healthcare services and uplift these girls and women who are not allowed out of their houses, while staying just four hours away from us – in Delhi, a cosmopolitan ecosystem.
We then explained to all the women that the type of breast cancer that is killing young girls under 20 and 30 years of age is called Triple Negative, which is common in India. And we went to Bano’s house to see her 19-year-old daughter-in-law too, who was very excited to see us there and do her check-ups and diagnosis.
We were insistent to teach each one of them about “breast self-examination”, every month to keep a check on themselves after every cycle of menstruation. This is called Secondary Prevention. This is for all of us and our loved ones, as one out of every 25 Indian women and one out of every eight women globally falls prey to the deadly disease, thereby making it the commonest cancer affecting women worldwide.
Anybody having a history of ovarian cancer can also develop breast cancer. And we met ‘Gauri amma’, 62 years old, in her house at village Rihanna, Baghpat district, who was undergoing her ninth cycle of chemotherapy. We counselled her 32-year-old daughter (a mother of four) to undergo preventive tests. She did her ultrasound and clinical checkup to check for any developing abnormality, as her mother also had a history of suffering from the ailment.
Currently, we do the patient mobilisation programme at Gramin Healthcare (in case of expensive tests and diagnosis) – our on-ground partner supported by IFFCO Kisan.
Our research analysts are recording the Digital Survey Primary Data in camps and by going door to door, travelling from Delhi to these villages, staying in each village and working from 6 AM to 5 PM. Then, they submit it online till midnight to our strategic partner Eximious Health in Bangalore, where data scientists are working day and night to make reports.
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