Radiation therapists at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital are leaving in droves because of unsatisfactory salary scales while the facility faces cancer treatment backlogs.

Sowetan has been reliably told that at least nine therapists have resigned in the past two years, leaving about 40 staff members to treat about 4,500 new cancer patients every year. The hospital's oncology department is the biggest cancer unit in the country and even serves patients from outside Gauteng...