Wait for cancer care inhumane

Whatever form it takes – and there are some minor variations to it – the Hippocratic Oath sworn by medical professionals binds them to care for all patients entrusted to them… and do their utmost to “cause no harm” to any such patient.

Clearly, in the Gauteng Department of Health, it is either that the non-medics who are calling the shots – or, more worryingly, that the doctors in positions of authority appear to be turning a blind eye to the prescripts of the Hippocratic Oath.

How else do you explain the callous treatment of the more than 3 000 patients who are on the waiting list for what could well be life-saving cancer treatments? Many of these people are being put off and told to wait for months – months they don’t have – because there is, supposedly, a lack of resources for the treatments.

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Many have died – and many more will probably die, in a situation which is worse than that of the Life Esidimeni scandal, where 144 people died because the department shunted them off to inappropriate care facilities.

The claim of a lack of oncology resources is particularly galling to the dying – and their families. This is, after all, a department which has seen weapons-grade looting of money… money which could have, should have, provided these badly needed treatment resources.

Even more painful is the fact that a court order forcing the department to honour a previous court declaration that it provide these services came in the week of the anniversary of the assassination of Babita Deokaran.

She was gunned down on 23 August 2021, as she was investigating large-scale theft at Thembisa hospital on behalf of the Gauteng department of Health.

Those responsible for the inhumane policy on cancer treatments should be charged with culpable homicide for any preventable deaths which result.

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