The
‘Peer-Nurse Navigation Program’ uses a combination of cancer survivors and
oncology nurses to guide newly diagnosed patients to achieve quality health
outcomes.
President
of BCI-Ghana, Dr. Beatrice Waife Addai tells Luv News the project is based on
what she terms as the principle of HOPE – Helping Others through Personal
Experiences (HOPE).
“We
realized that there is a very big gap between what happens to a patient when he
or she is diagnosed with cancer and what happens in the hospital; so what we
are getting is a lot of people defaulting treatment because the person is
diagnosed in the hospital, he or she goes home and there is no follow up”, she
observed.
A
training session for voluntary nurses and breast cancer survivors is underway
at the Peace and Love Hospital in Kumasi. Participants are being equipped with
appropriate skills to assist newly diagnosed cancer patients to access support
and resource to cope with their disease.
Breast
cancer is the leading malignancy among women with about 60 percent reporting
late. This leads to physical, psychological, socio-cultural and financial
challenges in the diagnosis and treatment process.
Dr.
Wiafe Addai says the success of the Ashanti regional pilot will inform an
African-wide roll-out of the project.
“It’s
not needed in Ghana but the whole of Africa because we don’t have such support
systems anywhere”, she stated. “When you go to the developed world, they have
support systems [but] we don’t have that in our country and we believe that is
the reason why about 70 percent of our women are running away from the hospital
because of mastectomy”.
The
program is in collaboration with Carrie’s TOUCH, a US-based non-profit
organization.
Story
by Kofi Adu Domfeh
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