Northern Cape loses its only public children's cancer specialist, leaving one oncologist for the province

The Northern Cape's only public-sector paediatric oncologist left the province's health service in February, and the provincial health department has not said how children with cancer will be treated in her absence.

Dr Liezl du Plessis set up and ran the paediatric oncology unit at Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital in Kimberley for eight years. Her departure was reported on 30 October by Spotlight and Daily Maverick in the fifth part of their series on cancer care in South Africa. The provincial health department did not respond to several requests for comment before publication, the outlets said.

Du Plessis was the province's first consultant paediatric oncologist. She returned to South Africa in 2018 and started paediatric haematology and oncology services in the Northern Cape, according to her profile at St Jude Children's Research Hospital's graduate school. She was recruited to Kimberley that year by the paediatrician Dr Pieter Jooste.

The eight years, the February departure and the silence from the department are Spotlight's account. The "first consultant" line is the St Jude profile. Jooste's role in recruiting her is in the same reporting. None of it is a statement from the Northern Cape Department of Health, which did not answer the outlets.

Why she left

Du Plessis told Spotlight she left because of exhaustion and the trauma that built up over the years. She described failing laboratory services, staff shortages and a collapse in hospital maintenance: the maintenance team, once about 40 to 50 people, had shrunk to two or three. She said she sometimes took blood samples to the laboratory herself, and that she was never able to build a trained oncology nursing team.

"If I could foresee that things would be any better in ten years, I think I might have stayed," she said. She now works in private practice in Pretoria, Spotlight reported.

The unit she led had seven beds: four single rooms and a three-bed ward.

The maintenance numbers are hers, given to Spotlight: about 40 to 50 people, then two or three. The blood samples and the missing nursing team are the same interview. The Pretoria private practice is Spotlight's report of where she works now. It is not a departmental posting.

One oncologist for the province

When Du Plessis was at the hospital, the Northern Cape had three public-sector oncologists: two for adults and one for children. One of the adult oncologists has since left the public sector too.

"So there was one adult oncologist for the entire province," Du Plessis said. A parliamentary reply cited by Spotlight also shows a single public-sector oncologist in the Northern Cape. That doctor is based in Kimberley and also covers the JF Boeboe van Wyk Oncology Clinic in Springbok, about 776km away.

The Springbok clinic admitted its first cancer patient in July, according to an official statement, and has enrolled about 200 patients so far, Geraldine Farmer of the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA) told the outlets.

The shortage is not new. At a 2018 parliamentary hearing, the province reported two oncologists, two radiologists and one paediatric oncologist, Business Day reported at the time.

Read together, the 2018 hearing and the current parliamentary reply are two dated counts, not a contradiction. In 2018 the province told Parliament it had two oncologists, two radiologists and one paediatric oncologist. After Du Plessis and one adult oncologist left the public service, Spotlight's reading of a later parliamentary reply is a single public oncologist, in Kimberley, also covering Springbok. The 776km is the distance the outlets give between those two sites. The July first patient and the 200 enrolled are Farmer's figures for the Springbok clinic, with the first admission backed by an official statement.

Where children go now

Du Plessis said many children with cancer from the Northern Cape will now be referred to Bloemfontein, about 175km by road from Kimberley and much further from towns in the west of the province. Farmer said most serious cases already go there.

The 175km is Kimberley to Bloemfontein. It is not the trip from the west of the province, which the reporting describes only as much further. Farmer's "most serious cases already go there" means Bloemfontein was already the referral for those cases before this departure. Du Plessis's point is that many children will now be sent on that road because the Kimberley children's post is empty.

Spotlight described a 14-year-old patient who had been treated in the unit since August 2025. After Du Plessis left, he was moved to an adult ward. His mother said a stock-out later left him without chemotherapy for about a month.

What has not been answered

The department has not said whether the paediatric oncology post has been advertised or filled, how many children the unit treated, or how long referrals to Bloemfontein take.

Parents of children being treated for cancer in the Northern Cape should keep every appointment and ask the treating doctor or the hospital for a written referral and treatment plan if their child's care is moved. CANSA runs a toll-free line on 0800 22 66 22 for patients and families. That line is a patient service. It does not fill the vacant children's post. Springbok's clinic, 776km from the remaining public oncologist in Kimberley, is the adult service described in the reporting. It does not replace the children's unit Du Plessis ran. Spotlight published this chapter on 30 October. The department still had not answered.