Heaptalk, Jakarta — Cancer patients face a complex care journey and often encounter many barriers to accessing it. The cancer patient navigator, called Napak, plays a vital role in directing the patient’s treatment journey. For this reason, Dharmais Cancer Hospital organized the Napak training program in collaboration with Roche Indonesia and Tata Memorial Center (TMC).
In 1990, Dr. Harold Freeman introduced the concept of patient navigation in Harlem, USA. The idea was designed to remove barriers to timely screening, diagnosis, treatment, and palliative care. Patient navigation is the individualized assistance offered to patients, families, and caregivers to help overcome healthcare system barriers and facilitate timely access to quality health and psychosocial services from pre-diagnosis through all phases of cancer.
Seeing the importance of this role and that it is not yet present in Indonesia, Roche, together with Dharmais Cancer Hospital and Tata Memorial Center, entered into a partnership in 2021 to introduce the first comprehensive Napak training program in Indonesia.
“Until this year, we have seen an extraordinary achievement, namely the completion of the training of twenty-one Napak people,” explained Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin in a press release at the Napak graduation ceremony at the Dharmais Hospital auditorium, Jakarta, Thursday (05/02).
Further, he added, “The Napak recipients of the Postgraduate Diploma Program in the field of oncology navigation after undergoing training at the Tata Memorial Center (TMC) and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). In the past year, they were educated in psychosocial aspects of care by TISS while also attending clinical aspects training with TMC.” Now, Napak training program graduates from six state hospitals and one private hospital in Indonesia are ready to serve in their hospitals.
“We are very pleased to partner with Roche and Tata Memorial Center in this program,” said Soeko Werdi Nindito, President Director of Dharmais Cancer Hospital.
He continued, “During the training program, we observed how Napak helps guide patients on their treatment journey, which impacts the timeliness of service delivery. We hope that these initial achievements, coupled with more evidence of Napak’s contribution to cancer care, will pave a clear path towards implementing Napak’s role in more hospitals and recognition of their presence in the national network of cancer centers.”
Twenty-one Napak is now ready to continue making a real difference in the lives of cancer patients. “We are very proud and honored to witness the completion of our first batch of Napak studies,” said Ait-Allah Mejri, President and Director of Roche Indonesia.
“This is one important achievement among many that we will achieve with our partners in the future. “We also warmly welcome and thank our new partners, FK-KMK UGM and Sardjito Hospital, who are also committed to expanding this collaboration for better cancer care outcomes,” he concluded.
