This Holiday Season, Give Emergency Relief to Cancer Patients
“You have cancer.”
Those devastating words send chills through us all. As the initial shock subsides the reality of unanticipated expense deals a second, unwelcome blow.
We know from assisting more than 70,000 cancer patients with the cost of their treatments just how financially overwhelming and destructive a cancer diagnosis can be. Cancer Doesn’t Care that a patient can’t afford their pain medication or the expense of getting to a treatment center. Cancer Doesn’t Care that some patients are forced to drain their child’s college savings fund or choose between an imaging scan and buying groceries.
Cancer Doesn’t Care, but we do.
That’s why during this season of giving, we are proud to announce the launch of our “Cancer Doesn’t Care” giving campaign to raise the remaining funds needed to launch the Emergency Cancer Relief Fund (ECRF). The ECRF will allow us to provide immediate grants to qualified cancer patients to assist them with meaningful comforts, such as anti-nausea medicine, travel to and from an appointment, wigs and other hidden expenses. Giving is as easy as clicking here.
The out-of-pocket critical costs of cancer can be financially devastating. According to a Duke University Medical Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute study, out-of-pocket, cancer-related costs averaged $712 a month. Further, the study found that about 30 percent of respondents said their expenses were a “significant burden” and 11 percent called those expenses a “catastrophic problem.”
The “Cancer Doesn’t Care” campaign asks individuals, celebrities, and corporations for financial and social media support. We’ve created powerful social media graphics and messaging that can be shared to highlight the many ways that cancer affects patients financially.
Cancer patients must pay for so much more than treatment, and every little bit makes a difference. Please help make the holidays a little brighter by donating, and reach out to friends and family through your own social media networks. Share the messages we’ve prepared or create your own. Even a small donation can make a difference.
Please help ease the burden for someone who has received these three devastating words by asking your social networks to give. On behalf of HealthWell and the thousands of cancer patients we serve, I thank you for caring.
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The HealthWell Foundation is an independent non-profit that provides financial assistance to underinsured Americans to help them afford life-changing medical treatments (and sponsor of this blog).