Tata Trusts launches its latest cancer awareness campaign – ‘Kaise Ka Cancer’

New Delhi: Supporting the movement to ‘close the care gap’ on World Cancer Day, Tata Trusts has launched its latest campaign “Kaise Ka Cancer” that highlights the feeling of uncertainty that cancer patients and their caregivers, especially those from smaller towns and villages, experience when detected with cancer. The campaign raises awareness around four key pillars that can alleviate India’s problem of growing cancer burden: awareness, accessibility, quality care and affordability.

The first film takes viewers on an emotional journey into the lives of cancer patients, highlighting how uncertainties around their personal lives, finances, and future weigh more on their minds than the cancer itself, and how the four pillars of Tata Trusts Cancer Care Programme provide relief. The campaign then builds on the stress of uncertainties in the next film which highlights the mental agony of the patient’s family-members and caregivers through this difficult time and the ray of hope that hospitals supported by Tata Trusts provide for the entire family. The third film showcases the need to stop ignoring symptoms such as difficulty in swallowing, lumps, mouth ulcer and unusual vaginal discharge and highlights the importance of getting checked and tested – an imperative measure in India, where the already high disease burden is exacerbated due to delayed detection.

Dr Sanjiv Chopra, Chief Executive, Cancer Care Programme, Tata Trusts said, “Tata Trusts has always been committed to driving cancer care interventions and further strengthened its support with the launch of a comprehensive Cancer Care Programme in 2017. We have been working relentlessly to execute a distributed model of cancer care across the country, with the aim to provide access to screening, uniform high-quality care, affordable treatment, and palliative care. By bringing to the fore the journeys of cancer patients and their families, the ‘Kaise Ka Cancer’ campaign is helping us drive awareness on available resources and underscore the importance of timely screenings – all of which are key focus areas for us. Committed to our vision of providing holistic care across the country, we will continue to shape our programmes in a way that helps ease the journey of patients and their families as they navigate tough times.”

Today, India’s reported cancer incidence stands at 15 lakhs with real incidence estimated to be 1.5 to 3 times higher than the reported cases. At the same time, while globally 30% of cancer patients lose their lives as a result of detection at a later stage and 70% of the lives are saved as a result of awareness leading to early-detection; unfortunately, in India, this 30:70 ratio stands reversed, with 70% of lives being lost to late-detection, mainly due to lack of awareness and low penetration of screening programs.  The ‘Kaise Ka Cancer’ campaign by Tata Trusts, which has been championing efforts to help reduce India’s cancer burden since 1941, comes as another step necessary in transforming cancer care in India by improving the quality of life of cancer patients and their kin.

The ‘Kaise’ film series will be phased over the next two weeks, supported by multi-city cancer screening drives, aimed at setting the nation on the path to reversing the early to late detection ratio from the existing 30:70 to 70:30 over the next few years through sustained efforts in driving awareness and screening.

The Trusts’ teams are carrying out screening drives at Ranchi, Jharkhand; Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh; Chandrapur, Maharashtra; Barpeta, Darrang, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Kokrajhar, Lakhimpur, Tezpur in Assam; and Cuttack, Odisha.