With a pep in her step, a spark in her eyes and a wicked sense of humour, one would not think that Thato Moncho has endured a years-long battle not only with progressive cancer, but with the Gauteng Department of Health.

Listen to this article 12 min Listen to this article 12 min 'I'm sitting here today knowing that I'm not going to be able to get radiation and praying every night that the chemo tablets continue to work on me. The minute they stop working, what will happen to me then?"

These are the words of Thato Moncho, a 40-year-old mother and cancer patient whose one prayer is that she lives long enough to see her 15-year-old daughter grow up.

advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove adsAside from taking oral chemotherapy to ensure that her cancer doesn't spread, prayer is one of the few options Moncho has left in her fight against cancer as a result of the Gauteng Department of Health's (GDoH's) failure to timeously provide live-saving radiation oncology treatment.

Moncho is one of 3,000 cancer patients who have been let down by the GDoH after it failed to use the R784-million allocated by the Gauteng Treasury in March 2023 to clear the backlog in providing radiation treatment at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital and Steve Biko Academic Hospital.

The money was meant for outsourcing radiation oncology services. In April, more than a year after the allocation was...