who we are

Manx Cancer Help is an Isle of Man Charity for cancer patients and their families, carers and friends who seek expert counselling to help them cope with the difficult issues triggered by a cancer diagnosis.  One in three people are diagnosed with cancer during their lives.  Manx Cancer Help offers a series of free, confidential sessions, both face to face and over the phone to anyone affected by a cancer diagnosis.  We provide sessions at our offices in Douglas, or at home if clients are feeling too ill to face the journey or are caring for someone too sick to leave.  We can also provide small grants to clients who are experiencing severe levels of financial hardship due to their illness, on a limited basis.

Families and carers provide essential support for patients, but their own needs for emotional and practical support may go unrecognised – often because they put the needs of the patient first. Families’ and carers’ need for support can be particularly profound around the time of diagnosis, at the end of treatment, at recurrence and most particularly around the time of death and bereavement. Professional support is not always available for families and carers who need it.

We aim to complement the services offered by other agencies to cancer patients and work alongside other charities to offer the best support that we can. Manx Cancer Help provides specialist emotional and psychological support in line with the NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) guidance on supportive and palliative care at levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 (delivered by trained and accredited staff in the specialist area of psycho-oncology).

Psycho-Oncology is concerned with relations between cancer and the mind.  ‘Psycho’ comes from the Greek work psyche, which means soul or mind.  ‘Oncology’ is from the Greek word onkos (a mass), meaning the study of cancer.