How Betty Mbaembae's story is helping reshape cancer care delivery through the Botswana

A breast cancer survivor’s journey from patient to Botswana’s first patient navigator.

At the intersection of lived experience and health systems innovation, one woman’s journey is changing how patients move through cancer care in Botswana. Through the Botswana–Rutgers Partnership for Health (BRPH), her experience is informing how the Rutgers Global Health Institute (RGHI) designs and implements patient navigation and diagnostic support programs.

Seven Months to Diagnosis and The Cost of Delay

Betty’s journey began in November 2016 with a symptom that was initially dismissed by clinicians as lactation. It took seven months of uncertainty before she received her Stage 3B diagnosis in June 2017. Her treatment was arduous. She underwent eight cycles of chemotherapy, followed by a mastectomy and six weeks of radiotherapy. Just as she believed the most difficult phase was behind her, she was met with a new, daunting reality: her cancer was HER2-positive. This aggressive subtype demanded a new, extended course of targeted therapy using Herceptin, administered every three weeks. The news was a heavy blow.

“I thought I was done. When they told me I needed more treatment, I broke down. I had already been through so much,” Betty recalled during a recent interview conducted in Botswana with Dr Richard Marlink, Director of the Rutgers Global Health Institute.

Betty Mbaembae chooses to reveal her mastectomy scar—a powerful symbol of her victory and a testament to the life she continues to embrace.

Although Botswana’s public health system covered much of her treatment, including care at Princess Marina Hospital, the journey was far from easy. Betty experienced severe side effects, including treatment-induced heart complications, a known risk associated with certain chemotherapy and targeted therapies. Despite periods of cardiac dysfunction, she refused to let the interruptions stop her. She persisted through the monitoring and the recovery, driven by a singular focus.

“I came this far,” she says today, now in remission. “I had to finish what I started.”

Redefining Survivorship to Bridge Lived Experience and Health Systems

Surviving the clinical battle was only part of the story. Her journey exposed the systemic barriers that exist outside the hospital walls: the prolonged delays in diagnosis, significant transportation and financial constraints, the limited awareness in rural areas, and the cultural beliefs that often steer people away from life-saving care.

During recent patient navigation training in Francistown, Betty Mbaembae (right) and medical oncologist Dr. Ariane Migeotte (left) demonstrate clinical breast palpation and the techniques for breast self-examination.

Recognizing her unique technical discipline, Dr. Yehoda Martei a medical oncologist and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, selected Betty to pilot a new approach to care coordination. As she shared with Dr. Richard Marlink, this pilot allowed her to turn systemic gaps into bridges, eventually becoming Botswana’s first formally trained non-clinical patient navigator.

The true turning point arrived when Betty earned her professional certificate in patient navigation. This credential served as the bridge to Dr. Refeletswe Lebelonyane, the lead project manager overseeing the national upscaling of navigator services. Under Dr. Lebelonyane’s leadership, Betty’s role transitioned from a pioneering volunteer into a formally trained trainer.

Today, that experience informs her work within the Botswana–Rutgers Partnership for Health. Betty Mbae serves as a volunteer advisor and Patient Navigator Trainer, contributing to both community engagement and the training of patient navigators across Botswana. In practice, this work takes shape in direct and often immediate ways. She helps patients understand their diagnoses, secures transportation, and guides them through complex referral systems. She also provides psychosocial support grounded in lived experience, offering reassurance beyond clinical care.

“Navigators don’t have to be nurses,” Betty says. “They need to understand people, their struggles, and how to guide them.”

Through partnerships with institutions such as Princess Marina Hospital and local imaging services, she facilitates access to mammograms, ultrasounds, and follow-up care for under-resourced patients. Her support also extends to caregivers, who often navigate these challenges alongside their loved ones.

Her presence in the wards reflects what recovery can look like for patients still in treatment.

Patients relate more to someone who went through the same situation. They have hope when you tell them, ‘I was in this situation too.’

Betty Mbaembae

Changing How Cancer Is Seen and Spoken About

Betty’s leadership extends beyond the clinic, tackling the cultural stigmas that often silence cancer survivors in Botswana. She has moved to normalize the physical realities of the disease, publicly embracing her post-surgical scars as a “scar of victory.”

Her advocacy gained wider visibility when she won Miss Millennium Botswana in 2023, a pageant for women over 40 who lead significant community impact initiatives. She used this national platform to launch “Beat It with Betty,” a multi-sector breast cancer awareness initiative that extends her work beyond individual support and links awareness directly to earlier detection and care-seeking behavior.

Miss Millennium 2023 Betty Mbaembae with the late Minister of Health, Hon. Setlhomo Lelatisitswe, and KGK Diamonds CEO, Mr. Siddath Gothi.

For Betty, the work is deeply personal, but it also addresses systemic barriers:

“I do not want anyone to go through what I went through, waiting months for my diagnosis. We need to shorten that time. We can save lives.”

To reach rural communities where cancer education is often inaccessible, she pioneered the translation of complex oncology concepts into Setswana. By ‘speaking in ways they understand,’ she dismantles the belief that cancer is a supernatural curse and replaces fear with actionable health literacy, ensuring that older women in rural communities can access life-saving information.

Recent Progress in Cancer Care Across Botswana

Building on Betty Mbaembae’s journey, the BRPH model has expanded across Botswana to strengthen both diagnostic capacity and patient support. Between November 2025 and March 2026, the BRPH model expanded beyond pilot sites to establish a system that strengthens both diagnostic capacity and patient support.

A critical milestone was the December 2025 training of 14 matrons from 14 facilities, securing the institutional buy-in necessary for sustainability. This momentum continued into early 2026 with the ‘Up North’ expansion, training 39 new nurse navigators and 39 medical officers now capacitated to perform diagnostic biopsies. The clinical impact was immediate. At Gaborone’s Bontleng Clinic, trained providers screened 11 patients in a single month and identified seven cases of breast cancer, highlighting both improved detection at the community level and the urgency of earlier screening interventions.

How Betty Mbaembae’s story is helping reshape cancer care delivery through the Botswana–Rutgers Partnership