MyCancerBuddy.

MyCancerBuddy

The diagnosis of Cancer can often come as a shock to an individual and leave them with many questions to answer. They may experience a myriad of emotions ranging from anger, fear to anxiety and even depression. When such a life changing diagnosis is made, patients can frequently feel isolated from their friends and family who perhaps cannot truly appreciate their situation. Moreover, they may also feel isolated from their caregivers who may have a tendency to see things only from a medical perspective and ignore the emotional aspect of cancer. This sense of isolation is worse amongst those from ethnic minorities, who have religious, cultural and language barriers to overcome in addition to the difficulties mentioned above.

An effective way to help address these issues is to encourage members of minority communities to step up and take the responsibility of supporting patients from their community. It is this in mind that Mercy Mission has collaborated with MacMillan Cancer to introduce the MyCancerBuddy Programme at the Barts and The London NHS Trust.

This project has two principle aims – the first of which is to revive the Prophetic tradition of visiting the sick. Many people do not have the ability to frequently visit people who suffer with illness, and this project aims to facilitate this for them. Our second aim is to help provide much needed support to Muslims who are suffering with Cancer. Furthermore, we also aim to support non-Muslims who are afflicted by Cancer, if they feel they are in need of support.

We also seek to support the treatment pathway, by encouraging Muslims to donate stem cells. Working with Anthony Nolan Trust, we have developed a gateway for Muslims to become stem cell donors. Stem cell donors play a crucial role in the care pathway for those people seeking to survive leukemia and associated cancers through providing a lifeline through their stem cells.