Activities of Asraya

On every working day of the RCC, a group of volunteers offer warm rice gruel (kanjivellam) to the patients of the chemotherapy ward and their bystanders from the hospital canteen.

They talk to the patients who are going through the ordeal of chemotherapy and try to allay their fear and anxieties. When patients realize that some of the volunteers who are cancer survivors, they are instilled with the hope that, life after cancer can still be beautiful despite the pain and the fear of a recurrence.

Daily, two volunteers prepare health-mix porridge for the patients of the Palliative Ward. For patients who cannot be fed through the mouth, volunteers provide diluted health-mix for nasal feeding. Moreover, patients are given a kit of health-mix, milk powder and sugar at the time of discharge from the hospital. 

Asraya volunteers also offer to watch over the patients while the bystander slips out for a quick meal,a bath, sleep or to purchase medicines. Asraya is a big comfort to those who are left with the sudden departure of their loved one.

Oncology and Trauma Specialists, and Medical Trainers, conduct training programs for Asraya volunteers. This is essentially to train them how to provide counseling and emotional support to  patients and their families.

Asraya volunteers assist the nursing staff in the Lymphodema Clinic daily. Exercises to prevent edema are  demonstrated,  breathing techniques and massages are taught, arm measurements are recorded to check edema and follow-up appointments are given. Leaflets (in Malayalam, Tamil and English) explaining care and precautions are handed out to the patients.

Asraya volunteers are trained periodically in the aspects relating to Lymphodema by the nursing staff. Several patients have been raised out of despair and frustration through the involvement of our volunteers who are breast cancer survivors, and who take extra pains in counseling. This helps to form a support group for patients when they need it most

Camps are organized throughout Trivandrum and its periphery with the help of doctors and the laboratory staff .

These camps are of vital importance to detect early growth of cancer in people who come in the high-risk  category because of their habits of chewing tobacco, smoking, drugs and intake of alcohol.

During the camps, medical help for general illness is also made available. Medicines and vitamin supplements are given to all the patients, free of cost. In the year 2016-2017, Asraya conducted six early detection camps on the coastal areas and remote villages and 4 awareness classes in various schools.

Asraya provides books, magazines and toys for children and their families during their stay in the hospital.

We  organize patient transportation when required.

Ambulance services or other vehicles according to the patient’s requirements are arranged for transfer of –

 a) critically ill or the dead bodies back to their homes b) amputated patients back to their homes.

For Onam, Christmas / New year, Asraya distributes sheets, sarees, nighties, towels etc to cancer  patients and gifts and sweets to pediatric patients.

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Education
Rehabilitation