News24 | 'Health system tortured this patient': How a woman with cancer spent a year seeking help

Simphiwe Mthimunye endured harrowing pain when Mpumalanga's public health facilities did not provide her with adequate healthcare.

Simphiwe Mthimunye spent the past year travelling from one state hospital to the next, desperately seeking treatment after finding a lump in her breast in December last year.

Speaking to News24 from a hospital bed in Johannesburg, the 38-year-old woman from Secunda, Mpumalanga, said she was formally diagnosed with breast cancer in June after the lump ruptured, leaving a gaping hole in her breast and an unbearable stench.

Mthimunye said she struggled to get an appointment for a CT scan – a diagnostic procedure that produces images of the inside of the body.

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