"Care Beyond Cure" is truly the core of all that we do at Ruma Abedona Hospice. Here is the story of Mr. Das or Burdwan, West Bengal.

Mr. Das was a 47year's man who had wife and two young children. He was an engineer by profession; however he moved on to become an entrepreneur in the whole-sale business. He was a very successful businessman.

However Cancer is no respecter of persons. For his last few years Mr. Das suffered from spinal cancer. He spent a lot of time and finances trying to find a cure for this dreaded disease, but to no avail. Besides becoming more and more infirmed physically he also was very distressed mentally and emotionally as he tried to provide for his family after his inevitable demise. He could not find a way to be guaranteed that they would be correctly cared for without being cheated.

Friends then told Mr. Das about Ruma Abedona Hospice. Our very caring volunteers visited him at his home and listened to his story. They immediately began holistic, palliative care for him, and care for his family. He requested that we try to assist him with settling his business affairs too.

Regrettably Mr. Das died very shortly after we began to care for the family. We continued to visit his home to give bereavement care to Mrs. Das and the children. We have been asked now to help the family manage the property and investments for their future. Because of the wide range of administrative and other business expertise besides palliative care expertise we have amongst our volunteers we have been able to come alongside this grieving family to give them CARE BEYOND CURE.

We share this story, one of many that could be told every month, to express the full extent of our Care Beyond Cure motto. Our pledge is to care for the whole family whether they be wealthy or poor, with no discrimination for religion, caste or creed. People matter - we believe in a loving God and we desire to express His compassion and care to all.

Miss Kabita (the actual name has been changed for the privacy of the patient) was suffering from breast cancer for more than 1 year. However she was the sister of two brothers and they had to earn a livelihood for 7 members of the family. So getting diagnosed of breast cancer was more than enough for her and the thought to undergo treatment was more of a luxury which she could dream of. Hence eventually time progressed and she had to bear the brunt of her ill fate due to her disease and fate because of her disease. Within 1 year the cancer had spread to all bones and whole body: she started suffering from immense pain, kept tossing in pain, had difficulty in getting up from bed, go for toilets and in due course became bed ridden. The conditions worsened and she could not even change her clothes and thus she started bed wetting. Foul smell of urine and stools encompassed her and the breast cancer started to fun gate. To make conditions even more worse everybody stopped caring for her and she was left outside of her house in 1 piece of cloth bearing the heat of the scorching sun and rains with pain , foul smell and maggots all over her. She was but only waiting for death in silent tears. It was then the neighborhood became kind enough to inform us and asked to do something. We, the team of Ruma Hospice leaded by Santanu Chakraborty were astonished at the 1st visit to see how one can really abandon a family person because of an advanced disease condition. The 1st thing we did was that we changed her clothes, gave her a thorough bath, combed her hair and made her feel that no she was really not so alone. Our touch of fingers on her body made her cry and unleashed the entire pent up sad saga from her heart. She smiled at us. We started pain medications, nursed her of her fumigating wounds. We used newspapers to soak the discharge from the wound. It did help to lessen the foul smell. She was able to get up and and stools. People came near her, her brother asked her how she was. Truly enough, we assured the family of our all time support and asked to give her a shoulder. By the end of 3 months she was able to eat, drink, go to toilets and felt she was not as sick as before. However, we gave her clothes, rice, dul, cooking oil, occasionally vegetables and all the medicines. Her bed sores started healing, the pain lessened. As of today she is still suffering from an advanced breast cancer but maybe she now has a reason to smile and a story to tell that an advanced disease does not necessarily mean the end of life and care…