SECTION27, Cancer Alliance and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), and patients waiting for cancer treatment are marching to the Gauteng Department of Health. @dailysunsa pic.twitter.com/nMIK5iKRkS
— Zandile Ethel Khumalo (@Ethel_Khumalo) April 30, 2024
"THE Department of Health has become the department that kills."
These were the words of Mark Heywood, a South African human rights and social justice activist, who stood with cancer patients during their march to the department's offices over the backlog in radiation oncology services.
On Tuesday, 30 April, cancer patients and activists took to the streets to demand the Gauteng Department of Health use the R784 million set aside by the province's treasury in March 2023.
This fund was meant to outsource radiation oncology services for more than 3 000 patients currently on the backlog list.
Many of these patients have been waiting for years, and tragically, some have died while waiting for the department to act.
"The Department of Health is denying people their fundamental right. We know they have had R700 million for over a year to treat cancer patients in our hospitals, but they are not spending the money. That is a crime, that is killing, and causing people pain and suffering," Heywood said.
The group protesting handed over a memorandum of demands to the department. These demands included updating the list of patients awaiting radiation oncology services and advertising for, and appointing, radiation oncology service providers for the treatment of patients on the backlog list.
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Reacting to delays in procurement, Cancer Alliance spokeswoman Salome Meyer said the department was initially meant to update the backlog list, as a year had passed since it was compiled in March 2022.
She said this would then be followed by the appointment of a service provider to provide the radiation oncology services, but to this day, the department has been silent.
Meanwhile, cancer patients said they sit in limbo waiting for radiation. Some even lamented how the silence by the department is equal to them being killed.
Responding to these demands, the Gauteng Department of Health said a service provider has since been appointed to provide radiation oncology services.
"Currently, radiation oncology services are offered at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Steve Biko Academic Hospital. The finalization of the radiation oncology services tender will help to expand the provision of radiation oncology healthcare service in the province," Gauteng health spokesman Motalatale Modiba said.
Contrary to allegations that the department has not used the R784 million allocated to address the backlog in surgical and radiation oncology services, Motalatale set the record straight.
"A total of R534 million has already been invested in oncology, medical, and allied equipment such as cutting-edge linear accelerator machines and the building of bunkers for some of the machines. Furthermore, R250 million has been allocated for the outsourcing of the radiation oncology tender, which has been finalized for a period of one year," he said.
