Child Health

Our Initiatives

CHILD HEALTH

Cancer patients suffer from devastating physical, mental, and emotional trauma. Mostly, for poor patients, the lack of funds to afford proper treatment and medication becomes the cause of their demise. Sukruthi Charitable Trust raises funds to offer complete medical care and financial support to such patients and helps them fight the blight.

Chemotherapy Ports

Chemotherapy is a treatment that involves combinations of drugs and uses powerful chemicals to destroy cancer cells or control them from multiplying in a certain body part.

A chemo port is a small device that is implanted under your skin below the collar bone to allow easy access to your bloodstream. The advantage of this vein-access device is that chemotherapy medications can be delivered directly into the vein, eliminating the need for multiple needle pricks at every chemotherapy cycle. It can be used if you need transfusions of red blood cells or platelets.

A chemo port is very beneficial to a patient because it decreases the anxiety of multiple pricks, decreases the chances of extravasation injuries and thrombophlebitis, leading to hassle-free treatments. A chemo port is now the standard practice of care all around the world for patients receiving chemotherapy. It helps the cancer patients by bringing ease and comfort for taking chemotherapy, thereby increasing the compliance for treatment, especially for children.

But it is still quite expensive in India making it unaffordable for poor patients forcing them to go through chemotherapy without the chemo port.

A chemo port would typically cost upwards of Rs. 25,000 in a private hospital in India. We provide those ports (absolutely free of cost) to children who need to undergo chemotherapy but can’t afford the high cost.

Chronic Kidney Disease

Kidney diseases such as kidney dysfunction and failure are devastating and require quick treatment. There are different ways of providing dialysis to such patients.

There are two options for ESRD (End-Stage Renal Disease) patients in India - Hospital-based Hemodialysis (HD) or home-based Peritoneal Dialysis [CAPD]. HD is the most common modality in India. In HD, the blood is filtered through a machine that acts like an artificial kidney and is returned to the body. HD needs to be performed in a designated dialysis centre. It is usually needed about 3 times per week, with each episode taking about 3-4 hours. ESRD patients need to undergo dialysis for several years before they get a transplant which could cost them anywhere between Rs. 15-20,000 per month.

With its ambulatory nature and freedom from complicated and expensive technology, peritoneal dialysis (PD) is the ideal renal replacement therapy for resource-poor India. While HD requires sophisticated infrastructure and human resources, PD is delivered at home by patients themselves or a caregiver and does not require infrastructure.

Children typically need to undergo PD twice a day, every day of the month for the entire year and several years before they become eligible for a transplant. And it would cost anywhere between Rs. 20-25000 per month making it extremely difficult for their parents to afford this treatment. In most cases, the monthly income for such people will not be that much and spending it on the treatment of one child is unimaginable leading to child mortality.

We provide dialysis bags (absolutely free of cost) for children undergoing peritoneal dialysis.

Low Cost Pharmacy

LOW COST PHARMACY

Background of Pharmaceutical industry in India

In recent years, India has achieved phenomenal growth in the pharmaceutical sector, demonstrating the capacity to meet domestic needs and the expertise to cater to the global demands. India produces a third of the world’s drugs, and is the largest supplier of low-cost generics, vaccines and affordable HIV medication. India’s pharma sector serves more than 200 countries and territories. It has the second-largest number of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved medicine-manufacturing plants. By 2024, the industry is expected to reach $65 billion in worth. This impressive growth has led to India acquiring the distinction of “pharmacy of the world”.

Despite all this, majority of the Indians do not have access to the cheapest medications in the world. Most of the drugs are overpriced and unaffordable. The margins are extremely high. This means that the hapless consumer is overcharged by a huge margin, which in turn may even cause indebtedness of patients and their families.

What is Sukruthi Pharma

Sukruthi Pharma is a joint initiative between two NGOs, Sukruthi Charitable Trust and Raghavendra Rural Health Care Foundation (RRHCF). It is a not-for-profit initiative that was set up to make available essential medicines of quality at reduced costs by eliminating the margins shared with prescribers, middlemen, and related marketing costs.

Why did we start Sukruthi Pharma

Medicines constitute 50 to 80 percent of the costs of health care in India, which is the second-most leading cause of rural indebtedness in India after expenses on social rituals.

Retail prices of most brand and price leaders are high priced and enjoy a cost-to-sales margin of anything from 100 to 3000 percent.

We believe that medicines must be of a high quality but be accessible and affordable to all, if India is to reach the goal of health for all.

Palliative Care

PALLIATIVE CARE

Palliative Care / Hospice – State of the Union

India, being home to one –sixth of the world’s population has a huge burden of suffering from life limiting diseases. It is estimated that in India the total no. of people who need palliative care (PC) is likely to be 5.4 million people a year. Though PC was introduced nearly 30 years ago, it is still in its infancy with less than 1% of patients having access to PC. Obstacles are too many and not only include factors like population density, poverty, geographical density, restrictive policies regarding opioid prescription, workforce development at base level but also limited national PC policy and lack of institutional interest in palliative care.

However there has been a steady progress in the past few years through community owned PC services. South Indian state of Kerala which has just 3% of Indian population stands out in terms of achieving coverage of more than 90% of the palliative care services in the country. There is a huge dearth of such centers in Karnataka and India.

The Karnataka State palliative care policy reports that over 1.8 lakhs of people are diagnosed with cancer, 2 lakhs people with HIV and a larger unknown number of people with other incurable illnesses are currently in pain and suffering. Of the 1.8 lakh cancer patients registered for treatment, around 60,000 new patients are diagnosed each year and in advanced stages of the disease.

Additionally, the elderly and patients suffering from other chronic illnesses like HIV, chronic kidney, heart, neurological or hepatic diseases also require Palliative Care. It is estimated that less than 2% of these patients receive palliative care.

Palliative Care in the State is provided by a few hospitals and NGOs some of which include the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology (KMIO), Bangalore Hospice Trust – Karunashraya, Bangalore Baptist Hospital, St Johns Medical College and Hospital, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, Kasturba Medical College etc.

What is Palliative Care ?

Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.

Palliative care is the active total care applicable from the time of diagnosis, aimed at improving the quality of life of patients and their families facing serious life-limiting illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering from pain and other physical symptoms as well as psychological, social and spiritual distress through socially acceptable and affordable interventions.

Palliative medicine may not change the harsh realities of advanced cancer, but its timely provision will ensure that distressing symptoms are alleviated, and that the quality of a patient’s journey is maintained to every extent possible.

Sukruthi Home Palliative Care

Sukruthi Charitable Trust in partnership with the Dept of Pain and Palliative Medicine, St. John’s Medical College Hospital recently launched a home-based palliative care service. This service is absolutely free-of-cost including medications and disposables.

This service aims to improve the quality of life of the patient from every angle. It includes the following goals:

To keep pain to a minimum, using clinical methods.
To treat symptoms and improve health where possible.
To assist with mobility and safety.
To allow meaningful interactions between patients and their friends, family and community.
To improve spiritual and emotional well-being through counselling.
To allow both patients and caregivers to understand and express their feelings through these difficult times.
To ensure patients and caregivers understand what is happening and make informed, well-thought-through choices.

We aim to reach out to several underprivileged patients with our free medical care program. We need your support to carry out the journey.

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