OPEN LETTER
Dear MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko
In the 2023 budget speech delivered by the MEC for Finance in Gauteng on 9 March 2023, Treasury allocated R784 million to the outsourcing of radiation oncology services and other surgical backlogs. It has been a year since this allocation was made and to date not a single cancer patient has received treatment through this intervention.
It is shocking that there has been a year-long delay in providing life-saving treatment to patients living with cancer while resources in the way of funding are available, particularly as the issue of the growing number of cancer patients awaiting radiation oncology treatment has been brought to the attention of the office of the former MEC for Health, Ms Nomathemba Mokgethi, and the former head of the Gauteng Department of Health, Dr Nomonde Nolutsungu, as far back as June 2020 by Cancer Alliance and the Treatment Action Campaign. We are now approaching 4 years since the initial correspondence on this issue was sent to your office and still, the patients we advocate for are no better off.
Following the allotment of funds in March 2023, it was agreed that the Gauteng Department of Health would take specific steps to initiate the outsourcing programme. These steps included initially the updating of the backlog list as a year had passed since it was compiled in March 2022, followed by the appointment of a service provider to provide the radiation oncology services. To date, we are unsure whether the backlog list has been updated. We are however aware that there has been no appointment of a service provider to provide these services as the patients we are advocating for remain desperate for treatment.
In August 2023, SECTION27 and Cancer Alliance learnt that the funding ringfenced by the Gauteng Treasury was at risk of being returned to treasury coffers as unused funds and as part of treasury’s cost containment measures in the 2023 Medium Term Budget. SECTION27 and Cancer Alliances pleas to the Gauteng Treasury helped secure the funding for a second time. It was only after threats of litigation directed at the Gauteng Department of Health, following the 2023 Medium Term Budget that the department advertised a tender for the outsourcing of radiation oncology services in October 2023, with a closing date on 2 November 2023. The 90-day validity period concluded on 1 February 2024.
It is unconscionable that the lives of thousands of people remain in jeopardy for years when resources have been made available to service their needs. We hope that you will see this as an opportunity to meet the departments constitutionally mandated responsibilities to secure radiation oncology services for these patients.
Link to full Post: https://www.spotlightnsp.co.za/2024/04/24/open-letter-r784-million-goes-unspent-as-cancer-patients-continue-to-die/