Fighting the big C

But what seemed like the end of life was only the beginning when he, along with his friend and cancer survivor Chiragkumar Shanker, started unCancer India, which aims to help cancer patients attain health care easily.

The organisation is the only one from Asia to be selected for the final round of the Big C competition. A project by Livestrong Foundation that is looking for the best methods to reach out to the cancer community. unCancer India was part of 750 entries from around the world, but is now among the top five finalists. The winners of the competition, the final presentation of which will be on October 17, will receive $25,000.

Sushanth says, “My cancer was so rare that there was no proper research. I would read about it on the Internet and would ask doctors but they wouldn’t have any answers. Things started to get very frustrating. I thought I was dying. At 23, when I was supposed to be starting life, I was diagnosed with cancer; I was at the brink of despair. When I looked back at my life, I felt ashamed. I hadn’t done anything to help the world,” Sushanth says.

“It was very difficult to access health care. That’s when I realised that if an educated person like me, who could claim healthcare benefits (his father was a government employee), was struggling so much, imagine the plight of the poor?”

Luckily for Sushanth, doctors were able to operate and surgically removed the 20 cm tumour from his abdomen. After the removal of his kidney and adrenaline gland, Sushanth returned home in December 2011.

Luckily for him, the cancer hadn’t spread to the rest of his body and he was cancer-free.

“When cancer affects the poor, they don’t seek treatment until the symptoms are terrible, which is usually in the final stage. So I started meeting NGOs, medical social workers and doctors, trying to understand how I could help,” says Sushanth.

It was during this time that he met Chiragkumar Shanker and they joined hands to start unCancer India.

Sushanth says, “We did a pilot project with little financial support from TISS where we tried to connect patients to survivors and see if they could help them, when people were unable to help themselves, we went to help. Sometimes making registrations on their behalf, assisting them, counselling them etc.”

With the many procedures and the inability to obtain healthcare, many people suffering from cancer succumb to it and that’s where they come in, “We want to bridge the doctor-patient gap. We also aim at helping patient navigation where we guide patients through the entire medical process, and help poor patients financially,” says Sushanth.