Cancer patient on radiation waiting list told to 'have faith and come back in seven months'
When Thato Moncho pleaded with officials at a Gauteng hospital to get her on a radiation programme to treat her aggressive, fast-spreading cancer, they told her to come back in seven months.
“I remember saying to them, I don’t have that much time. What I have been diagnosed with is aggressive and it needs treatment at a certain time. They told me to have faith.
“I told them it’s not a matter of faith, it’s a matter of getting treatment in time.”
And, Moncho was right – it was too late.
“Now it’s breast, lungs, brain, liver and bones. That’s how big it is. I cannot count on my body where it is, because it’s almost everywhere. When your cancer is all over your body, radiation is no longer necessary,” she said.
Moncho’s tragic story is likely to be echoed among the 3 000 cancer patients who are on the waiting list for chemotherapy and radiation treatments at Gauteng government hospitals.
Court orders compliance
The High Court in Johannesburg said last week cancer patients do not have the “luxury of time”, when handing down a ruling that the Gauteng health department has to abide by a previous order relating to the provision of radiation oncology services.
That order, in March, declared the province’s health department’s failure to provide radiation and oncology services to cancer patients “unlawful and unconstitutional”.
The court also ordered the department to take “all steps necessary” to provide radiation oncology services to patients on the backlog list for treatment at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Steve Biko Academic Hospital.
Judge Fiona Dippenaar ruled the department’s arguments failed to provide factual evidence to counter the applicants’ cases.
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Years of delays
Moncho was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and got her first chemo treatment in October that year.
She finished her nine cycles in April 2021. However, because the process to get radiation took so long, she was re-diagnosed with cancer by the time it opened.
“I had to go back and do another nine cycles of chemo, which finished in March 2022, and had a mastectomy in May to remove my right breast.”
When she booked for radiation, she was told to come back in October 2022.
Moncho remembers how she phoned around and begged anybody and everybody who would listen to help her get radiation treatment.
Moncho said she never got the treatment when and how she was supposed to.
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“I will never have forgotten the doctors’ words: ‘To be honest with you, Thato, you have been coming in and going out of here, but you are no longer eligible for radiation because the cancer has reoccurred multiple times and moved to the lungs. Radiation is not going to serve you any purpose any more.’
“And they simply failed to give me radiation because they said they didn’t have resources,” Moncho said.
“Even though National Treasury pushed assistance through the backlog, they still failed and used that money for their own purposes and not to save lives.”
Moncho said they used that money for something else and that’s why they ended up in court.
“I know of people who have been waiting for a month to get a simple MRI scan – and they died waiting.”
Medical expert and South African Medical Association (Sama) chair Dr Angelique Coetzee said: “Radiation oncology treatment relies on precise timing. If you have delays, you can make curative interventions ineffective, leading to irrefutable harm.”
Not just for the individual but the entire family and society, as noted by the court.
“Cancer is relentless; your treatment delays are both a breach of medical ethics and a violation of human dignity.”
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Political fallout
DA Gauteng shadow health MEC Jack Bloom said the cancer treatment scandal has probably cost more lives than the 144 mental patients who died in the Life Esidimeni tragedy, when they were sent to illegal NGOs.
Bloom has called on Premier Panyaza Lesufi to fire Gauteng health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, following the court judgment.
He said the Gauteng health department appealed the court ruling on 27 March this year, which found their failure to provide cancer treatment unlawful and unconstitutional.
“They were ordered to update and maintain the backlog list of cancer patients awaiting radiation oncology services in Gauteng within 45 days of the court’s order, and take all necessary steps to provide treatment to those patients at public or private facilities.”
He said the department argued the court order would be suspended [pending their appeal].
“The latest court ruling decisively rebuffed that argument.”
Bloom said the DA condemns the department’s legal stalling tactics that harm patients who urgently require life-saving treatment.
NOW READ: Cancer patients do not have the ‘luxury of time’, Gauteng court rules
