Telephone Helpline & Peer Support
Telephone Helpline
The Telephone Helpline is “the lifeline” of CanSupport. It provides information and emotional support to callers as well as facilitates networking and coordination with service providers for callers’ cancer and palliative care related needs. This is a confidential service that overcomes the barrier of physical distance and seeks to support the caller both empathetically and practically.
The Helpline is manned by trained counsellors who are equipped with information related to financial support, blood banks, cancer detection centres, hospitals, nursing bureaus, wigs, medical equipment and prostheses, ambulances, chemist shops, and other modes of assistance that may be useful to cancer patients, caregivers and families. The Helpline also provides prompt referrals to Palliative Care consultations and Home Care services. Our counsellors are available on the Helpline from Monday to Saturday (9:00 am to 6:00 pm).
CanSupport’s Palliative Telemedicine, launched in August 2022, offers palliative care consultation over phone/video calls to support patients who are outside our operational service geographies. The idea was based on the successful experience of the use of telemedicine by CanSupport during Covid and considering that India has very limited palliative care centres in North India.
Peer Support
Cancer is not only traumatic, it can also be very isolating. Not being able to share one’s pain and anguish with one’s family in order not to upset them further, adds to the enormous suffering and stress of the disease. Research shows that Peer Support, especially from cancer survivors, is highly therapeutic, and people are better able to deal with their illness and treatment when supported by others who have walked this road themselves.
CanSupport provides Peer Support in two ways – through facilitators and other survivors over the phone or in Peer Support Group Sessions organised on request. Here, patients can share their personal experiences, pain, fears, anxieties and stress resulting from the cancer without any inhibition with other survivors in a confidential and non-judgmental setting. It is our effort to handhold patients and help them cope with their emotional and spiritual issues by understanding their own condition better.
We also provide Peer Support to caregivers and family members coping with the intense and multiple responsibilities of care giving.
Thank you for the warm and friendly advice. I am already feeling less afraid and more hopeful of tomorrow’s possibilities.
CanSupport Helpline & Peer Support:
011 – 41010539 | +91 9899011212 (Monday to Saturday, 9:00 am to 6:00 pm)
National Palliative Care Helpline Saath Saath:
1800 202 7777 (Monday to Saturday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm)
Or write to us at: helpline@cansupport.org
For Tele-Consultation, Contact:
Dr. Anita Harsh: +919315905147: 9:30 am–5:30 pm (Mon-Fri)