The Democratic Alliance (DA) has lodged a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) against the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), claiming months-long delays in cancer testing for Gauteng public hospital patients amount to human rights abuses.

According to the DA, in Gauteng some patients wait as long as three months for cancer test results in the public system, compared with about 48 hours in the private sector, delaying diagnosis and treatment.

DA health spokesperson Michele Clarke said persistent backlogs at the NHLS are putting lives at risk and called for an urgent SAHRC investigation. The party links the delays to governance failures previously flagged by the Auditor-General, including: “uninvestigated irregular expenditure,” “a lack of disciplinary action,” and “procurement that bypassed prescribed processes.”

The DA argues the situation violates patients’ rights to dignity, life, and access to healthcare, and wants remedial steps to restore turnaround times for cancer diagnostics in Gauteng’s public sector.

The Gauteng provincial health service has been plagued by massive corruption and chronic mismanagement for years, with billions of rands looted through irregular tenders, overbilling, and failed hospital projects. The DA says these systemic failures have crippled service delivery and left vulnerable patients paying the price.

Despite the broad failure of government administered healthcare services the African National Congress (ANC) has proposed nationalising South Africa’s private healthcare services under the proposed National Health Insurance scheme.

With local government elections scheduled for about a year from now, Gauteng’s major metros – Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni – are expected to serve as key test cases for South Africa’s longer-term political direction. Polling by the Social Research Foundation suggests the ANC, which is part of governing coalitions in each of the three Gauteng metros, is set to suffer significant losses in the province’s urban centres, where frustration over corruption, healthcare collapse, and failing infrastructure continues to erode voter confidence.