Hear the Accompanying Voices
Tell the Supporting Cast Stories
oUR mISSION
This project focuses on the overlooked human‑centered care and supporting‑cast communities throughout cancer journeys. Our goals are to identify public‑health concerns, advocate for systemic change, and foster community engagement.
OUR sERIES
In cancer treatment, the protagonists are patients and physicians. Standing beside them is an unseen supporting cast: devoted family caregivers, peer‑support patients, quiet unsung volunteers, and front‑line clinical staff providing day‑to‑day care.
While modern medical interventions such as medication and surgery form the main theme of cancer care, patients’ psychological well‑being and culturally rooted humanistic care, which serve as its accompaniment, often go unheard.
Over the past three years, we have interviewed more than 50 cancer patients, family members, volunteers and medical staff. Biographical sketches have been written for 28 of these participants, organised into 4 series. Pseudonyms are used for some individuals in the text.
Ward Boundaries
Read the 14 stories of patients and their family caregivers. Driven by population ageing in China, approximately 5.3 million new cancer cases are diagnosed nationwide every year. The overwhelming majority of patients at Jiangxi Cancer Hospital come from ordinary working‑class households within the province, and cancer places substantial financial strain on these families. Full‑time caregiving by family members is an established social norm in China. Long‑term caregiving requires renting housing and preparing meals, so patients and their families seeking treatment away from home face a host of challenges…
Home Flavor
Read the 3 stories of the couple behind the charity kitchen and family caregivers who cook for their loved ones.Before 2003, Wan Zuocheng and Xiong Gengxiang ran a fried dough stick stall. Touched by a cancer patient’s mother who asked to use their stove for home cooking, the couple closed their original business and turned the space into a dedicated kitchen for patient families. The kitchen operates 365 days a year, from early dawn till late night. Although the government has improved infrastructure, enterprises have donated equipment, and volunteers provide intermittent assistance, daily operations still rely entirely on the septuagenarian couple, leaving the charity kitchen facing a serious succession dilemma…
Read the 3 stories of volunteers and social workers. Volunteer services are an important humanistic supplement to medical interventions such as medication and surgery. Most volunteers are kind-hearted members of the public and college students. They offer their services without seeking any return: some provide basic services such as outpatient guidance; some are music therapy volunteers; some are cancer survivors who share their illness experiences to offer psychological counseling, share rehabilitation experiences, and help patients with special difficulties or those without family caregivers; some are hospice care volunteers who accompany patients in advanced and terminal wards, read to them, listen to their stories, and provide grief comfort...
Accompanying Voices
Human Centric
Read the 8 stories of medical staffs.There are roughly 1,700 tertiary Grade‑A hospitals in China. Representing less than 5 % of the nation’s total hospitals, they accommodate over 40 % of nationwide medical consultations, reflecting supply‑demand imbalance and uneven distribution of healthcare resources. The average annual number of complaints against medical institutions across the country has nearly tripled compared with ten years ago. While delivering treatment, medical staff face the challenge of addressing the psychological needs of patients and their families and alleviating their anxiety and fear …
Contact us
中国广东省深圳市
nayuta043@gmail.com