Malta ‘nurse navigators’ embody patient-centred care

Malta has successfully introduced innovative nurse navigators to its cancer care services, which brings a personalized, integrated approach to care both during and after treatment. Dr Gauden Galea, WHO Representative in China, is a public health expert familiar with the service in his native Malta. He acknowledges that person-centred care is something frequently talked about but rarely seen in practice. The new role is changing that. 

 

“The nurse navigator makes the system revolve around the patient. At a time of great distress, the nurse navigator guides the patient through a maze of services, protocols and forms, and creates a cocoon of confidence in the system that is good for a patient’s mental health and contributes enormously to the quality of the overall therapeutic experience.” 

 

As in most high-income countries, cancer incidence is increasing in Malta, but so too are cancer survival rates. Behind all cancer statistics are hundreds of individual stories of struggle, endurance, acceptance, and increasingly, recovery. Health officials in Malta are paying more and more attention to the quality of life of people who experience cancer, both during and after their treatment. 

 

It was a deep concern for the individual experiences of cancer sufferers that drove Danika Marmarà, Director of Malta’s Cancer Care Pathways, to seek out and develop approaches that serve the individual needs of patients beyond the essential medical treatment of cancer tumours.