Despite the prevalence of the disease, the advancements that science has made and the sea of information easily available, many patients and their family members still find themselves grappling with the unknown when it comes to cancer – be it the choice of hospital, treatment, nutrition or even finances.
“I have had three close members of my family being diagnosed with cancer. I would consider my family to be decently well off and highly educated, but still we all struggled as there was lack of clarity and ambiguity about where to go, how long the treatment would last and what the prognosis would be…all this was very disconcerting,” says Sonali Srungaram.
It is a string of such close encounters with cancer that drove techie and ISB alumnus Sonali, who had been toying with many ideas in the healthcare sector since 2006, to find her calling in cancer care and led to her setting up Cipher Healthcare in 2012.
With no background in medicine, Sonali felt it was better to dabble in the ‘awareness and prevention’ space. The idea was to demystify cancer by talking about its possible causes, signs and symptoms with students and employees of MNCs and eventually encourage them to go for cancer screening.
“We did this for almost two years but later had to alter our course because of an issue — almost one third of the people who went for screening were diagnosed with malignant or pre-malignant tumours. We felt morally obliged to say that we got you to this point but now that it has been detected… we would like to be with you throughout the process of the treatment,” she adds.
It was then that Cipher came out with a toll-free helpline and a portal for cancer patients in August 2015. The portal maps out information such as the names and address of all cancer hospitals in all the states, diagnostic centres, home care centres and palliative care centres, among others, and the helpline is open to anyone who has any kind of query regarding the disease.
“The helpline took off really well and we still get about 50 calls a day. It was more of a social venture as it was free for people. For three years, we did not charge anything but now we have started to charge Rs 300 for those seeking a second opinion,” she says.
