KKF takes care of all the micro level support, and social needs of the patients and their family members and acts as a link between the patient and the doctors. KKF also provides financial support for the medicines of the patients.

KKF volunteers play a special role in the PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL by counseling the children, entertaining and educating them, counseling the children’s parents and helping them cope with the trying circumstances during the child’s treatment and recovery.

PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL ACTIVITIES

At the Pediatric (Children’s) Hospital, which accommodates children from 0 to 15 yrs of age, there are 50 beds for in-house patients and nearly 60-80 outdoor patients come for treatment daily that the volunteers cater to. KKF undertakes activities to help afflicted children and their parents to utilize their time constructively:

• Providing counselling and emotional support to cancer patients and their familiesIndividual counselling to older children and their family members, as well as group counselling to the patients and their families.
• Karuna-Navneet Library provides different kinds of books and magazines for children and their families during their stay in the hospital
• Karuna Toys Library provides a wide variety of toys to the children during their stay in the hospital and the toy-room is open thrice a week for the children to come and play
• Entertainment
  Children’s movie screened once a week in the hospital for the entertainment of the patients and their families
• Celebrations
  Festivals like Diwali, New Year, Christmas, Raksha-bandhan etc are celebrated in the hospital; also the children’s individual birthdays are also celebrated in a variety of fun-filled ways.
• Nutrition programme for children
  KKF has introduced a nutrition programme in the pediatric hospital called the ‘Protein Pro Nutrition Programme’. As most of the children who come here for treatment are from a low socio-economic background, they are not very aware of the importance of a good nutritious diet, and its importance in treatment of cancer. Besides, most of the times their families cannot even afford regular meals and protein supplements etc. Hence this project was launched by KKF to meet the daily protein, vitamin, calcium and mineral requirements of the patients. Protein supplement is very essential for the children during and after their treatment. This protein supplement in the form of a delicious chocolate flavored milk additive is provided not only during the treatment, but also after the child has recovered.
  It is manufactured exclusively for KKF, under KKF’s supervision and the powder is packaged in a way to provide a good shelf life. Each packet given to the child contains 30 sachets of the powder. It needs to be taken twice a day in milk, and hence each packet lasts 30 days. This ‘Protein Pro Nutrition powder is certified and has undergone laboratory testing.
• Child patient adoption
  KKF also offers various sponsorship and adoption schemes for the child patient. Here, the sponsors, by adopting a child, provide for all the financial requirements of the child for medicine etc. during and after the course of the treatment. So far, KKF has adopted 11 children.
• Financial support for medicines for the children patients
• Income generating activities for the families of the cancer patients 
  Like making rakhis, cards, diyas, bookmarks etc.
• Education
  Educating the children and their parents/siblings with play. Like teaching simple English, math and how to sign their name etc. and also lot of teaching is done through painting, drawing, etc.
• Collecting and distributing books, games, toys, and even money to provide for certain medicines etc. for patients.
• Monthly Gift Scheme
  In this KKF every month gives one child a gift of their choice. This child is generally someone who has shown good prognosis and is completing treatment etc. gifts like remote control cars, carrom boards, dolls etc. have been given.
• Follow up of the patients
  Follow up of the children patient is done, after their discharge from the hospital, especially, out-station children.

M.P.SHAH CANCER HOSPITAL ACTIVITIES (FOR ADULTS)

KKF Volunteers undertake the following activities at the M.P.Shah Cancer Hospital, round the year:
Our volunteers at the adults Cancer hospital attend to 450 in-door and 2-300 out-door patients daily.

• Operating a Guidance Cell at the hospital
  The volunteers at the M.P.Shah Cancer Hospital provide guidance to the patients and their families, especially the new patients who are either unaware of the admission processes or the different formalities that they need to fulfill and meet. This is very essential a part of the volunteering because most patients who seek treatment at this hospital are from villages and small towns and are either unlettered/have very low education or have never been acquainted with such institutions of this magnitude.
  The guidance cell operates at various departments within the hospital, like the admission OPD, Radiotherapy and chemotherapy OPD, radio-therapy unit, the gynec-oncology OPD, etc. The volunteers at the guidance cell provide guidance and help in information dissemination about the disease, necessary precautions, and help the patients right from the stage of admission in the hospital to their after-treatment follow-ups. Here the volunteers also many a times provide financial help
  to patients and even distribute sweets, biscuits etc. to children in the Radiotherapy department.
• Providing counseling and emotional support to patients and their family members
  Counseling is done at every stage. Special emphasis is laid on “why the patient must take the full treatment even though painful in the beginning and not stop mid-way so that his chances of survival are very high”.
  KKF volunteers counsel the indoor and OPD patients in providing information about the disease, procedures of treatment, duration of the treatment, approximate costs, dietary requirements, the possible side effects and how best to face all these situations so that the patient comes out a winner and survives the harsh treatment.
  This counselling not just continues throughout the patient’s stay in the hospital, but also at instances where the patient doesn’t survive the treatment. Here the family is given palliative counselling and also prepared to handle the death of the patient. Besides this there are certain posthumous services which KKF offers as well.
  In a nutshell the volunteers provide not only emotional support, but also training and guidance to the patients and their families on how to support and take care of the patient.
• Ambulance service
  KKF in collaboration with Mahavirpuram has started ambulance service for cancer patients of the M.P.Shah cancer hospital at a nominal rate. A lot of times the fees for this service are waved of for patients from very low socio-economic backgrounds who cannot afford even its nominal rates.

MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES

• Appointment and Training of Volunteers
  KKF undertakes training programs for the volunteers with faculty comprising of Oncology experts, Trauma specialists, Medical trainers, etc. this is essentially to train the volunteers in the area of counselling and dealing with the patients better.
 
• Promoting a network for social workers, doctors, experts and volunteers for the benefit of patients.
• Publishing and distributing informative material on cancer and related topics for patients and their care givers etc. This is primarily the advocacy work undertaken by KKF to promote awareness about cancer, its various causes and the management of the diseases and ways of coping with it, including diet, treatment side effects etc. This information is published by JASCAP and distributed by KKF along with other material printed by KKF itself.
• Fund raising activities to support our other ongoing activities.
  Though so far KKF has not undertaken any formal major fund raising activities, but has definitely realised the need to. It had recently organised a premier show of the newly released film ‘Umrao Jaan’, at drive-in cinema to raise funds for the cancer patients.
• Participating in various workshops, seminars and conferences related to the issue of cancer.
  • KKF volunteers were invited to participate is an open forum on Breast Cancer (organised by Hemato-Onco clinic ‘Vedant’, Ahmedabad) to talk about the social aspects of this disease.
  • KKF volunteer invited as a visiting faculty to present in MICA during its training programme on ‘Health Communication’ to the IEC officers of Gov. of India, Department of Health. The session was on ‘Communicating health messages to children in schools and colleges and the strategies adopted’.
  • KKF volunteer would be participating in an international conference cum workshop organised by Hriday Shan (a Delhi based NGO). This is the GYM (Global Youth Meet on Health) 2006. KKF was also given the mandate to select two children to represent the state of Gujarat to participate in this workshop.
  • KKF volunteers participated in the workshop – ‘Smoke free work places and public places’ organised by American Cancer Society held at Tata Memorial Hospital, Bombay in 2006.
  • Volunteers participated in a 2 day counselling workshop for cancer patients organised by Eli Lily, New Delhi in June 2006.