Tucked inside Eswari Nagar Main Road, near Pallavaram railway station, stands a bus painted in green, dark pink, blue and decorated with roses. Parked for close to a week now, it has been drawing a lot of attention. Not just because of how it looks. But also for what it does.
Four women are waiting near the veranda of Vasanthi’s house to enter this bus and undergo a cancer screening test.
Arockia Mary, awareness coordinator, Penn Nalam, a cancer care centre, explains to them the warning signs that go with breast cancer. The group get discuss heart-rending stories of people who have survived cancer. Penn Nalam, a unit of Sri Dhanvantri Trust, has launched an initiative to “save lives of women from cancer on time” through its mobile screening bus that goes to people’s doorsteps. Pallavaram is the second place the bus has gone to, where it is equipped with state-of-the-art facility to screen and test cancer. Last week the bus was stationed for over a week at Medavakkam.
In the coming months, it will visit semi-urban areas, including Nanmangalam, Tirusulam and Pozichalur. A seven-member team is part of the mobile bus. On an average, they attend to 25 women every day.
Getting women to take the test is not easy. Many are not keen on shelling out Rs. 250 for mammography, pap smear and other diagnostic tests for breast and cervical cancer. To help build awareness, coordinators are identified in the proposed areas that go from door to door distributing pamphlets and telling the women about the importance of early detection. “I have visited at least 100 houses in Eswari Nagar. Some 15 women have agreed for the test. I plan to go again,” says Selvi Ranganathan, programme coordinator of the area. Explaining why they charge a nominal amount, Mary says, “We spend Rs. 3,500 per person. Only when we charge do they understand the value of the test. Sometimes people don’t even collect the reports.” The test reports are generated in a week to 10 days. “If many women in a locality are tested positive. We bring in the doctor too,” says Mary.
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