OPINION | Gauteng on course to address cancer treatment

All children from two schools in Hammanskraal and Bronkhorstspruit who were admitted to hospital with suspected food poisoning have been discharged.
All children from two schools in Hammanskraal and Bronkhorstspruit who were admitted to hospital with suspected food poisoning have been discharged.
Image: 123RF/HXDBZXY

The Gauteng province provides treatment to around half of all the country's cancer patients, which puts a significant strain on the province’s already stretched public health system.

Neighbouring provinces such as Mpumalanga, North West and Limpopo also rely on Gauteng for oncology services rendered at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Tshwane's Steve Biko Academic Hospital.

This makes it vitally important for the province which is already the country’s most populous to get its house in order and urgently address the cancer patient treatment backlogs.

It's against this backdrop that the province is addressing the backlogs through additional treatment points as we've just outsourced treatment to other private oncology service providers.

We are addressing infrastructure challenges through the construction of bunkers at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto and at George Mukhari Hospital in Ga-Rankuwa.

These bunkers are expected to be completed around October next year and increase access for the much-needed cancer treatment in our facilities.

Addressing the backlogs means ensuring that cancer patients are being attended to and treated urgently.

The delays we have encountered, which were among others caused by initial budgetary constraints, and the impasse the department had with cancer advocacy group Cancer Alliance which delayed the awarding of a crucial cancer tender, have put us in a situation we are working hard to alleviate. 

Most crucially, two parts of a three-part cancer tender have now been concluded and awarded, with the treatment of patients now happening across the province.

Getting cancer treatment sorted out is something very personal for me as I lost both my mother and grandmother to cancer just one year apart in 2021 and 2022.

I'm personally invested in this issue. I will not play around with it. From capital investment, we've done a lot already on treatment planning and radiation oncology services,

Where we are still working day and night is on patient planning which is largely the reason we are yet to spend the R250m which saw us getting dragged to court recently.

The treatment planning part means we are able to assess the cancer, where it is and be able to decide how many doses per month or per week a patient would require to deal with that cancer. That contract has been awarded to Siemens.

Treatment planning is currently being rolled out at Steve Biko and Charlotte Maxeke.

For the next two years, we have acquired services of private oncologists that can see some of our patients while the machines are being procured

October 2025 may seem far, however the cancer machines that are being currently constructed are very complex. They are definitely not plug and play, there's a need to dig and install the bunkers because of radiation and safety issues.

Already four companies have been awarded contracts for the radiation oncology services. There's Busamed, Clinix, Life Group, Dr SJ Fourie and Partners already on board, while more others would be added on the list so that we move with pace to address the backlogs.

The appointment of these service providers who have started seeing patients to deal with the backlog is a big step and addresses the biggest problem – getting cancer patients to receive much-needed urgent treatment.

We also launched new cancer machines at Charlotte Maxeke and Steve Biko this year, so from a capacity and investing point, we've done a lot.

We are now going to have four centres for cancer treatment with Bara and George Mukhari being the two new additions to Charlotte and Steve Biko.

* Malotana is head of department at the Gauteng health department.


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