XI'AN – A relief fund for poor women suffering from cancers was launched Thursday in Xi'an, capital of northwest Shaanxi province.

According to Liu Lige, chairwoman of Shaanxi Provincial Women's Federation which launched the project, Shaanxi was listed as one of the pilot provinces for poor rural women free cancer checking in 2009 by the central government.

"We planned to check 580,000 people who suffer from cervical cancer and 36,000 people who suffer from breast cancer in 15 counties during the period of 2009 and 2011, and by now, we have completed the checking for 350,560 patients of cervical cancer and 24,000 of breast cancer," Liu said.

The checking result showed that some 21 women among 100,000 were suffering from cervical cancer and some 233 among 100,000 people faced pathological changes to breast cancer.

"The most difficult thing during the project implementing was lack of fund, and the women who suffered from the diseases were poor and could not pay the medical treatment. So the provincial women's federation launched the fund in order to help the poor rural women for their payment of medical treatment," the chairwoman said.

The fund entitled hand-in-hand fund aims to collect one million yuan ($151,946) from the society, and the provincial women and child development foundation under the federation had collected some 800,000 yuan for the cancer-suffering women at present.

"We still need some 200,000 yuan to complete our project, and we hope people both home and abroad to donate for our poor women," Liu said.