OPINION - Six months is a long time to wait to hear if you have cancer.
Some cancers are more aggressive than others and if unconfirmed and untreated, could advance rapidly.
Yet this is the position women in KwaZulu-Natal are faced with when they go to public hospitals requesting mammograms to check for breast cancer.
Bizarrely, this situation persists despite Health MEC Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo calling for people to get screened for early detection of cancers, and both the national and provincial health departments launching a national cancer campaign to educate people that cancer did not mean an automatic death sentence if detected and treated early.
The Health Department has been on a charm offensive in recent months, trying to convince the media and public that the oncology crisis, as it has come to be called, is over.
However, on the strength of our story today, we beg to differ.
The experiences of the four women who came to us tell a different story.
One tells a horror story of being bounced between three hospitals, none of which performed the desperately needed scan.
The department has touted hiring private oncologists as one of its efforts to plug gaps.
We suggest the gap between what is required and what is being delivered is beyond Dhlomo.