During July 2019, Piramal Swasthya in partnership with CARE Hospitals had launched UMEED Project, a Community Level Screening program for Oral, Breast and Cervical Cancers at Moinabad Mandal at Ranga Reddy District, Telangana State. The objective of the project is to mobilize community and create awareness on significance of early detection of cancers followed by a free of cost Screening at community level. A strong collaboration with Front line workers such as ASHAs and ANMs was established in consultation with District Medical & Health Officer of RR District. Despite of several efforts kept by the project team, Q3 had reported an average of 18 number of beneficiaries screened per day, challenging the very viability of the project in terms of cost per beneficiary. While doing the root cause analysis, the reasons are multiple for low turnover of beneficiaries, starting from the timings of the service camps clashing with labor hours of agricultural and construction sectors, reluctance of female beneficiaries to get themselves screened for breast and cervical cancers (despite ensuring adequate privacy), not giving priority to cancers as alarming and so on.
Having experienced the prevailing factors, the project team is looking for a ray of hope in terms of one good opportunity which can change the whole scenario. During September 2019, the project lead from Piramal Swasthya had approached CEO SERP (Society for elimination of Rural Poverty) which is a livelihoods intervention program run by an IAS Cadre officer under department of Rural development. The Concept of Community Level Cancer Screening was briefed to the CEO SERP and requested for a formal collaborationwith SERP so that the Self Help Groups can be approached at Moinabad Mandal and engage them actively by providing awareness followed by getting themselves screened for Oral, Breast and Cervical Cancers. A prompt response and support was extended by CEO SERP, which has become a major breakthrough in the process of Community mobilization and awareness initiative by UMEED Team. A thorough awareness sessions were conducted at the Mandal Samakhya (federation) level followed by SHG level during their own scheduled meetings. An active engagement and coordination with Mandal level SERP Team has made things possible enough to develop interaction with SHG women. By doing so, the performance reported in Q3 was overwhelming as the average number of beneficiaries screened per day has registered a steep rise @45 beneficiaries per day where there was more than 60% of SHG members along with their families had undergone screening. An increase of more than 100% in the turnover of beneficiaries, there was a tremendous improvement in terms of cost per beneficiary and the viability of the program because of the convergence initiative between Piramal Swasthya and Department of Rural development, Telangana state.