Cancer patients must undergo long-term treatment, causing many difficulties and hardships faced by them and their families as they have to spend their money sparingly in order to give high priority to spending their money on treatment for their disease. Therefore, free meals offered by the charity kitchen of the Da Nang Oncology Hospital help them be strong during treatment.

Staff from the Charity Kitchen of the Da Nang Oncology Hospital preparing free lunch for inpatients. Photo: LE HUNG

Warming poor patients’ heart

The Da Nang Oncology Hospital daily receives and treats about 700-900 patients across the country. Each patient has different circumstances, but their common point is to suffer from terrible pain and see the assets in their house going. Therefore, they have to fight pain while setting limits on spending with a meager amount of money.

Each bowl of nutritious rice and porridge from the Charity Kitchen of the Da Nang Oncology Hospital partly contributes giving physical and spiritual support to cancer patients as it helps them cope better with cancer, gives them something they need at a specific time, and also it is good for them to feel that somebody cares about them and it brings their morale up.

The charity kitchen of the Da Nang Oncology Hospital daily starts operation at 2:00 am in order to provide free three meals for inpatients, regardless of weekends, holidays or Tet Festival.

Doctor Nguyen Thi Thanh from the Hospital’s Department of Nutrition and Dietetics said that the operation of the charity kitchen ensures that the patients' meals are nutritious and full of love, and 1,800-2,100 meals free of charge are daily provided for poor patients on average.

“The meals are provided for poor cancer patients in diversity and nutritional status, and they are prepared and cooked under the guidance and supervision of doctors from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics. Many benefactors are joining efforts with the hospital to add cakes, milk, and fruits to their meals. We just want to make sure that patients are getting through the day with a good meal that they have the strength to fight and continue to move forward. The hospital currently has many poor patients who depend entirely on three meals of the charity kitchen. Therefore, warm meals are invaluable to poor cancer patients," said Doctor Thanh.

Impressive support from the Association for the Protection of Poor and Disadvantaged Women and Children

Doctor Tran Tu Quy, the Director of the Da Nang Oncology Hospital, said the Da Nang Association for the Protection of Poor and Disadvantaged Women and Children has joined forces with the hospital to support poor patients since the establishment of the hospital with a focus on raising funds for the charity kitchen and treatment for them. Over the past 10 years, the Association has played the key and pioneering role in calling for cash and food donations from domestic and foreign individuals, organizations and businesses to ensure continuity of free food provision for poor patients.

Besides, the Association regularly provide rice, fish sauce, vegetables, meat, gas, equipment and more for the charity kitchen to ensure its continuous operations.

“Calling for funds became limited amid COVID-19 crisis over the past 2 two years, along with natural disasters, storms and floods hitting the country and economic difficulties facing the whole country. However, active support from the Da Nang Association for the Protection of Poor and Disadvantaged Women and Children helped ensure continuity of the charity kitchen’s operations to provide nutritious meals for poor patients to get through tough times. Since 2020, apart from calling on domestic and foreign individuals and organizations to provide food support for the charity kitchen every year, the Association has donated VND 600 million in total to buy fresh food in a bid to prepare and cook nutritious meals for poor patients. In the first 9 months of 2022 alone, the Association raised funds to provide a combined total of 260,750 delicious and nutritious meals free of charge for poor patients. It can be affirmed that strong unanimity for cooperation between the Association and the Hospital has helped warm cancer patients' heart with providing food for free in order to make it easier for them as well as helped them be strong during treatment, " remarked Doctor Tran Tu Quy.

Mr Huynh Van Hoa, the Chairman of the Da Nang Association for the Protection of Poor and Disadvantaged Women and Children said that the Association has called for cash and material donations from domestic and foreign individuals, organizations, and businesses to provide more than 3,871 million meals totaling over VND 23.98 billion for poor patients in nearly 10 years.

The Da Nang Oncology Hospital is calling for extra help and support from generous sponsors to provide care in the form of a warm meal for cancer partients to help them have more strength to combat their disease.

" We want to make sure that people can continue to give back and do the right thing. We hope that our small contributions and great efforts from the Da Nang Association for the Protection of Poor and Disadvantaged Women and Children along with benefactors will bring a lot of joy and happiness to poor patients, and those battling cancer as a whole, in order to make  Da Nang a livable city for everyone", said Doctor Tran Tu Quy.

Reporting by LE HUNG – Translating by H.L