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For many families, a cancer diagnosis arrives together with a second shock: the cost. Treatment is expensive, and patients who travel to Mumbai from small towns often have no place to stay and no one to guide them. In Mumbai, Niramay Sewa Sansthan has made this journey easier for those with the fewest resources.
What Niramay does
Niramay arranges free stay for patients and their relatives, and helps with their treatment costs. It is located about one kilometre from Bombay Hospital, at Akme Palace Apartments, Dhobi Talav, and serves patients who come from Jalgaon and surrounding areas. A team of dedicated volunteers, led by Shri Chetan, supports each patient from the day they arrive: fixing appointments, arranging tests and standing by them until the treatment is complete. The Sansthan was founded in 2014 to help underprivileged people with serious illnesses such as cancer. During the COVID-19 period its workers also carried out mass screening, including in Dharavi.
Sushil's story
Shri Rameshwar Dagdu worked as a labourer in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) district. When doctors found a critical brain tumour in his eleventh-grade son, Sushil, the family had no way to pay for treatment. They found Niramay. Over three years Sushil had nine operations that cost about Rs 22 lakh in total, and Niramay covered all of it. Today Sushil is a first-year medical student, determined to treat poor patients free of cost, as Niramay once did for him.
Madhukar's story
Shri Madhukar Dagdu, a 75-year-old auto driver from Jalgaon, was fighting pancreatic cancer two years ago. With the help of Niramay's full-time worker, Shri Somnath Patil, he received treatment for about two years, and the team treated him like family. His expenses during his Mumbai visits were met with the help of government support.
Behind each of these stories is a simple idea: no one should have to face a long illness alone, or in a strange city.
This story is adapted from the Parivartan Yatra series on Sewagatha. Read the original: sewagatha.org.