MEDIA STATEMENT: CALL IT WHAT IT IS, GAUTENG GOVERNMENT: THERE IS A CANCER CRISIS IN GAUTENG!
Health activists to march to Gauteng Premier’s office on 23 November 2021 to demand better access to cancer treatment
17 November 2021, Johannesburg — Health activists from Cancer Alliance, the Treatment Action Campaign and SECTION27 will march to Premier David Makhura’s offices in Johannesburg on 23 November 2021 to demand that he urgently establish a task team to address the cancer crisis in Gauteng, where waiting lists for time-sensitive and potentially life-saving cancer treatment last years.
Certain cancer patients in the public sector in Gauteng can be forced to wait up to five years for potentially life-saving therapies. Many cancer patients, who cannot afford private sector treatment, are paying with their lives because of government’s delays. The time for hot air promises and Indabas is long past, and activists demand that the Gauteng government take meaningful action NOW to address backlogs in access to cancer treatment; properly staff and resource health facilities, and offer proper communication and care to patients on these deadly waiting lists.
More than six months after the April 2021 fire at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH), the only public facility in the province that offers radiation oncology, no steps have been taken to improve public sector cancer treatment in the province. The fire exacerbated a pre-existing crisis in radiation oncology, a crisis which the provincial government has refused to acknowledge. Right now, the backlog of patients at CMJAH is untenable, and oncologists inform us that:
- If you live in Gauteng and you have prostate cancer you may be forced to wait approximately five years for time sensitive potentially lifesaving radiotherapy treatment;
- If you have breast cancer you can be forced to wait more than a year for potentially lifesaving treatment;
- If you have cervical cancer, you can be forced to wait up to six months for potentially lifesaving treatment.
- If your condition is terminal and you require palliative care for immediate support and pain-relief, you can be forced to wait between 2 to 4 weeks, extending pain, suffering and indignity.
- These waiting lists affect close to 2,000 patients.
Patients have described immense pain, illness and indignities of waiting for their treatment.
The Gauteng Government needs to call it what it is: there is a #CancerCrisis in Gauteng which requires an urgent and sustained response.
The current situation, where there are only four machines at CMJAH and not enough staff to operate them, leads to serious violations of cancer patients’ rights to life, equality, dignity and to access healthcare. Some staff are also on a ‘go-slow’ due to an ongoing salary dispute and unfair labour practices. There aren’t enough radiation machines at CMJAH and the process for procurement of this equipment must be expedited to save lives. Because these 2000 patients’ lives are at risk while they wait for access to treatment, Premier Makhura must, together with medical, procurement and human resource officials from the GP Department of Health, resolve these issues as a matter of urgency. Public private partnerships (PPPs) that are carefully planned and transparently funded must be considered in the interim while long term capacity building, through equipment procurement and development of staff posts at CMJAH, is undertaken.
Activists will march to the Premier’s office with a coffin to represent all the lives lost because people could not access the life-saving radiation oncology that they needed, because the Gauteng Government delayed plans to improve cancer treatment. We will hand over a memorandum outlining the following demands:
- The Gauteng Provincial Government and Gauteng Department of Health must publicly acknowledge the #CancerCrisis in Gauteng and its failures to resolve this timeously;
- A task-team comprising of technical experts, government officials from relevant departments, and civil society must be established to advise and oversee the procurement of radiation equipment and services, with weekly published progress reports;
- Because of the urgency of this situation, the task-team must develop an integrated plan to be implemented no later than World Cancer Day – 4 February 2022;
- The province must communicate with affected patients about their treatments, with a dedicated toll-free phone number made available to patients to report on issues with their care;
- The provision of symptom management and palliative care to patients who require it while the backlog is addressed.
As things stand, the Gauteng Provincial Government is putting the lives of cancer patients at risk: if cancer patients cannot access radiation oncology in time, they run the risk of getting sicker, or having deadly recurrences of their cancers. With waiting lists as long as they are, the GP government is sending cancer patients home to suffer and potentially die. This is a crisis, and we demand better.
The media is invited to take note of the following details of the march:
- Date: Tuesday 23 November 2021
- Time: 10am – 12pm
- Where:
- Start: Beyers Naude Square, 59 Helen Joseph Street, New Town, Johannesburg, 2000 (https://goo.gl/maps/DTwFQaYXKfvkovMS6).
- End: Office of Premier Makhura, 1 Central Place, 30 Rahima Moosa Street, Newtown, Johannesburg 2107 (https://goo.gl/maps/VQWnL3i1cpwAEiim8).
- All Covid-19 health and safety protocols will be followed.
For media queries contact:
- Salomé Meyer, Cancer Alliance (079 483 3175, advocacy@canceralliance.co.za)
- Xabisa Qwabe, Treatment Action Campaign (076 850 6736, xabisa.qwabe@tac.org.za)
- Julia Chaskalson, SECTION27 (083 440 2674, chaskalson@section27.org.za)
#CancerCrisis #CancerPatientsMatter
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