By Joonho Jo
On November 13th, 2017, CanSupport expanded its offices into Punjab, more specifically Amritsar. Having established itself as a prominent organization in Delhi NCR, it seemed the right time to reach more area and more patients. Currently, the office hosts one team, composed of a doctor, a nurse, a nurse-counselor, and a networking officer. The team looks over seventy patients and have contacts in all of the governmental hospitals and oncology departments in Amritsar.
The Amritsar project began with a suggestion by the former CEO of CanSupport, Mr. Pankaj Mathur, who realized that Amritsar reported the highest rates of cancer in Punjab. Supervisors in the Delhi NCR coordinators made frequent visits to Punjab in order to figure out the logistics — everything ranging from morphine acquisitions to office booking. After conducting interviews and hiring the team, the supervisors brought them back to the Delhi NCR headquarters and conducted a training before sending them back to begin their work in Amritsar. The training in Delhi seemed too short, and they returned to Punjab to join the team on home visits and other everyday activities in sessions called "hand-holding."
With one city of Punjab already started, CanSupport is looking to found another office, either in Ludhiana or Bathinda. The ultimate goal is to reach all the districts of Punjab, replicating what was done in Delhi. In order to achieve such a task, Dr. Ambika required YJ and me to complete an analysis of the Amritsar project. With this document, the dos and don'ts of an "outside Delhi NCR" office inception will be outlined and will be denoted when starting Bathinda and Ludhiana. The components of the documents were as follows — Preamble, SWOT, Process, Readiness, and Learnings.
The Preamble consisted of the answers to the questions "Why are we expanding outside Delhi NCR?" and "Why Amritsar?" The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) section consisted of the positives and negatives of the project. What I learned about this was that the Strengths and Weaknesses were internal factors (e.g. Weakness — we have never expanded outside Delhi NCR before) and the Opportunities and Threats were external factors (e.g. Opportunities — the two main medical colleges at Amritsar both have oncology departments). The following section was Process, which was essentially a time line of the events that led to, and occurred after the founding of the Amritsar Project. The Readiness section consisted of six sections (Infrastructure, Human Resources, Trainings, Equipment, Funds, and Pipeline). Each of these included documentations of what happened during the project, as well as what could have been done more effectively. The Learnings section was merged with the prior section and added action points, otherwise known as a to-do list for the next project.
It is exciting to see CanSupport expand outside of Delhi, as palliative care is needed everywhere. When speaking to Dr. Mohan about this project, he told me "Pain is everywhere, not just in Delhi." For that reason, I am proud to be helping CanSupport launch itself into Punjab, and hopefully many other states in the near future.