MATRUSEVA (Health Maintenance Program For Women)
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| Cancer early detection and public awareness on life styles and preventable forms of cancer specific to India is still a miniscule effort in the form of outreach screening camps as compared to the effort for control of any other disease/ health disorder in India. These sparse and intermittent screening efforts experience total shortfall of follow up in majority of the cases. |
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| Notwithstanding the government/ public perception of empowering a girl child with education, it is also equally important to provide free health care to the uneducated women from the lower socio economic sections of the society. For preserving the great tradition of “family bonds” in India where the role of mother is looked at with a profound sense of respect, it is considered important to provide free health care and screening to women under high risk. |
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| Cancer of the Cervix is one of the most common forms of cancers in women from lower socio economic sections of the society in India. Cancer Cervix is preventable by simple education or can be early detected ten to fifteen years in advance by simple tests. |
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| In our efforts to early detect cancers specific to women, a unique model “Health Maintenance Program for Women” evolved in 1998 under the name of MATRUSEVA to screen them. Women are screened by befriending them, educating them, screening them periodically and guiding and persuading them and their family members to avail free surgical procedures. |
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| Women under high risk especially from the lower socio-economic sections of the society who have acquired motherhood/ sexually active are the target group and are provided with the following services: |
- Free consultation on gynaec problems & ante-natal advice are rendered.
- Highly subsidized treatment for common health disorders at a nominal cost of Rs.10/- for providing consultation along with free medicines by a qualified lady doctor.
- Free screening for cancers specific to women is carried out every year as a minimal screening requirement to reduce the incidence of Cancer Cervix.
- Offering free surgical procedures such as LEEP/ Cauterization where early lesions are detected.
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| By identifying women from a specific area and encouraging them to avail of free consultancy and subsidized treatment for common health disorders, MATRUSEVA screens women for cancer early detection through education. This enables a close follow up of cases identified under high risk. |
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| A digital Colposcope was gifted by Rotary Club through an International Project with another club from California in the year 2004. The equipment has been helping in detection of early lesions on cervix and making it possible to explain the patient as well as family members to make an informed choice to make the patient undergo simple surgical procedures as recommended by the World Health Organization. |
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| A dedicated laboratory for pathological investigations was annexed to Matruseva in the year 2000 to offer investigations at highly subsidized costs. |
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| Two MATRUSEVA clinics have been established so far with over sixteen hundred women becoming new beneficiaries every year. |