Cancer is a disease on the increase especially in Asia. Indonesia, a country of more than 275 million in an archipelago comprising more than 17 thousand islands. The country faces the challenges faced by many countries plus the geographical situation. This include challenges in cancer management and  palliative care.

The ICF or Indonesian Cancer Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in  1977 with the aim of educating the People on cancer awareness through activities within the community in cancer promotion, prevention, early detection and palliative care. With more than 140 chapters throughout the country, the NGO connects and work together with government health services in attaining their goals of programs including home care.

Home-based palliative care is one of the services of th ICF, implementing WHO guidelines for community-bases palliative care by providing public education, socialization. As mentioned before, the challenge of approaching the problems in a large population scattered in a multitude of islands is enormous. Fortunately, the country has a unique population systems in which populations are grouped into neighborhood groups, subsequently grouped into several neighborhood (each with its own head) and then under an urban village administration and so forth.

This “tiered system” allows the monitoring of individual families. This “Gotong Royong” pilosophy is a structured way of implementing the social solidarity of the village honed throughout the centuries.

In the context of cancer and palliative care, this system has been invaluable and contributes to the integration of resources in the National Health Care System and – in fact – indispensable for the success of programs in Indonesia.