Battling The Incurable Malady

Anita Peter

- Melissa Sherpa

Q. How did you come about at CPAA and what has inspired you the most to work towards this cause?

A. CPAA is a voluntary organization that has been working in the field of cancer for the last 50 years. As the association progressed, we started some awareness programmes and started doing medical camps for people. We have 85 doctors registered with us. So far, the organization has helped more than 10 lakh patients to complete the treatment. In doing this, I realized that when you go to a hospital you have a male ward and a female ward, you never have a third gender ward. So most of these transgenders do not go to the hospitals for this reason. Last year, we screened 500 transgenders and when we talked to them 5 of them actually gave up tobacco habits. And today they are crusaders for us. They go in their community and spread awareness about how bad tobacco is. For women in India, their health is the last thing on their mind. Family always comes first. They don’t even consider that they should get regular checkups. That’s why we started to take these checkups to their doorsteps.