I ensure that by 2024, all 514 districts or cities will have mammograms. What is most important is a healthy life without suffering from cancer
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The government strives to ensure that all cities and districts in the country have mammograms for early detection of breast cancer by 2024, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated.

"I ensure that by 2024, all 514 districts or cities will have mammograms. What is most important is a healthy life without suffering from cancer," the minister noted here on Monday.

"From 514 districts or cities in Indonesia, the ones that have mammogram are below 100 districts or cities," he pointed out.

According to Sadikin, the availability of mammograms in Indonesia is low as compared to Australia and Thailand. Out of three thousand hospitals in Indonesia, 200 hospitals currently have mammograms.

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Hence, as a result of this situation, 80 percent of women in Indonesia are unable to detect breast cancer early on, he highlighted.

Mammogram is useful as a tool to prevent the severity of breast cancer through an accurate early detection method, he explained.

The effort to provide mammograms across all hospital facilities is deemed crucial since breast cancer is a malignancy that causes most deaths among women.

"Cancers should be detected early. It cannot be detected after it reaches stage three or four. The easiest detection methods are through Sadanis (clinical breast examination) and Sadari (self-breast examination)," Sadikin remarked.

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According to the World Health Organization's (WHO's) standard, a mammogram is necessary to reduce the number of cancer cases among women, he stated.

Meeting the demand for mammogram for screening is an implementation of health transformation in the primary service sector.

The minister conducts health transformation through six pillars: primary service, referral service, health defense system, health financing system, health human resource, and health technology.


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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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