Cancer care advocate Melissa Vining says the Southland District Health Board (DHB) must change, or people will continue to suffer.
Her comments follow the story of Jason Mitchell, a 39-year-old man who waited months just to receive confirmation he was on a waiting list for a bowel cancer screening.
Southland DHB said the delay was due to a "loophole in the patient management system".
It says the COVID-19 pandemic also caused a delay in procedures, but it is working to catch up.
"Waiting times in some priority groups have been exacerbated by the need to recover the highest priority groups first. We understand the difficult situation this creates for those who are waiting and thank them for their understanding," a spokesperson told The AM Show.
Mitchell's story mirrors that of Vining's late husband Blair who in October 2018 was given eight weeks to live after being diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer.
The hospital system was so clogged, Vining was told her husband would not be able to see a public oncologist for six weeks. He died in 2019, after using his last months to campaign for cancer care reform.
Vining says Mitchell's story is far from isolated.
"I just get so many people messaging me, not just about colonoscopies but people are directly being harmed as a result of the healthcare system - there's all these reviews but where is the action?" she said.
"It's just a clear lack of getting the job done."
Vining says it is "absolutely despicable" that Southland has the highest rate of colon cancer in New Zealand but the lowest rates of colonoscopies.
One of the issues with the DHB according to Vining is surgeon recommendations are often turned over by hospitals.
Vining told The AM Show it's unacceptable.
"They need to be delivering to these Southland patients and all the reports have given them the same recommendations - clinicians, the surgeons who are seeing these patients need to be able to put people on the list and not have their decisions overruled," she said.
As part of her work, Vining is creating a charity hospital to ensure Southland residents have equal access to cancer care - but she says it won't be the end of the problem.
"We're seeing our first patient in a different facility before the end of the month but that doesn't take accountability away from the Government."
"They need to be delivering."
