The country's healthcare system needs to improve its capacity to treat patients suffering from cervical cancer, a cancer association says.
Dr. Laila Nuranna, the chairwoman of the Female Cancer Programme (FCP), said Friday the government has not yet come up with funding for a program to prevent new cases of cervical cancer.
"The government does not have a policy *to deal with cervical cancer*; they do not have a scheme to treat patients with this type of cancer," she added.
The country has around 15,000 new cases of cervical cancer every year, with 40 to 45 women being diagnosed every day. The mortality rate is around 50 percent.
Laila also said Indonesia lacked trained doctors and medical workers who could diagnose early signs of cervical cancer.
"While ways of detecting cervical cancer are quite affordable, many of the patients have come to see their doctors in the latter stages of cervical cancer, because not many of our medical workers are ready with providing tests," she added.
A pap smear test to detect cervical cancer costs Rp 100,000 (US$10.7) to Rp 150,000 at private hospitals, although some hospitals would charge up to Rp 500,000 per test. Women with a tighter budget can take the test at the Indonesian Cancer Foundation, which provides pap smear tests for Rp 40,000.
Doctors have also begun using the acetic acid tests, an aided visual inspection of the cervix to screen cancer. This test costs a lot less than a pap smear. Laila said in some regions in the country, community health centers or puskesmas would do the test for as low as Rp 5,000.
The second method, Laila said, has an accuracy rate of 60 to 92 percent, depending on the case. This compares with the pap smear test, which has an accuracy rate of 65 to 95 percent.
The FCP provided free acetic acid tests at the Women's Health Expo in Jakarta, treating around 600 women with the aim of increasing awareness of cervical cancer and the importance of its early detection.
"Cervical cancer can be easily prevented. We can detect the disease in the pre-cancer stage and in many women this stage lasts for years, so there is a huge chance to prevent it from being cancerous with an early detection," she said.
Laila said her institution had also trained hundreds of doctors and medical workers in several regions across the country to be able to perform the acetic acid tests.
"Not everyone got the full training, the others were trained quickly as an introduction to the test. But it's a start," she said.
Since 2004, the FCP has trained around 400 doctors and 500 midwives in several health centers in the capital.
"We have also trained doctors and midwives in Medan, Bali, Banjarmasin, Makassar, Manado, East Java and Central Java," she added.
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