A Delhi NGO and a centre in Mumbai offer free prostheses for cancer survivors who have undergone breast removal surgery
Twenty-two years ago, as Anita Vesuvala stepped out of her doctor’s chamber with a dreadful diagnosis – breast cancer – she began questioning everything. At 39, she realised she had so much more to do than give in to the tentacles of cancer. So she battled cancer but lost a part of herself to mastectomy.
After the surgery, when the doctor said she could go home, “I felt how could a woman go home with a vital part of her missing?” Meeting another mastectomy patient, who went through the same self-doubts but reclaimed her life helped Vesuvala. She realised that she’d now like to help other women, too. Since 1994, she has been a part of Mumbai’s Prince Aly Khan Hospital’s Cancer Rehabilitation Clinic, devoted to breast cancer patients.
Besides counselling patients and sourcing wigs for patients undergoing chemotherapy, she also helps women who undergo mastectomy with temporary breast forms, and later helps them in acquiring permanent external prostheses. A prosthesis is the fastest way to fill the space where the breast was, especially in cases where reconstruction surgery is not a financially feasible option. This is a huge relief for many women, especially after losing a breast and making so many major decisions, according to breastcancer.org.
The Centre sources prosthesis from the Indian Cancer Society, and the Cancer Patients Aid Association, and stocks both cotton and silicon prosthesis. “The cotton bras range from Rs 200 to Rs 450, and the silicon ones are available for Rs 4,500. For those who cannot afford, the cotton prosthesis are given for free,” she says.
In New Delhi, Kavita and Arun Gupta, who have been working to provide comfortable and affordable breast prosthesis. The couple based in New Delhi set up ‘Win Over Cancer’ after Arun battled with chronic lympotic leukaemia, and lost his job. The NGO helps patients with financial well-being programmes besides undertaking awareness drives. “After some research in 2016, I was shocked to know that 80 per cent breast cancer survivors don’t wear prosthetic bras because it is expensive.” It is then that decided to design something inexpensive, for every mastectomy patient deserves it.
Success story
In 2016 Kavita Gupta learned that 80 per cent breast cancer patients don’t wear prosthetic bras because they are expensive.
By November 2016, Kavita came up with the current version of the low-cost bra, which has been approved by AIIMS.
The bras are given free to anyone who writes to towinovercancer.net@gmail.com. More than 100 women have availed this service so far
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