Table 5.

services and treatment

Lack of understanding and distrust towards biomedical procedures
1.	“My brother had it on his private parts, his wife on her breast and my aunt on the breast. They all hid it because they were scared of people laughing at them. They used traditional medicine until it was late, and nothing could be done and later died.” (East London Church group)
2.	“What I noticed is that most people don’t know much about cancer, so I wish we can get an understanding of what it is. People think that it’s a curable disease, they go to witchdoctors and they don’t like going to the doctors, they say that if you go to the doctors you will die.” (East London Political and Community Leaders’ group)
3	“While he was in hospital his mother kept on bringing him traditional medicine, because people don’t believe that the drug given at hospital can help, they believe that the drugs at the hospital are weaker that the traditional. I agree with the other speakers that people do not have clear information on cancer. People end up seeking help from traditional practitioners because doctors cannot cure cancer.” (East London Political and Community Leaders’ group).
4.	“No, I don’t think so, I will talk about the area that I’m living in, if someone has cancer, they only think of (going to see) witchdoctors.” (East London Political and Community Leaders’ group)
5.	“I think the problem that we all have is relying too much on the (Western) doctors who will tell you to take treatment. Sometimes the doctors themselves prescribe incorrect treatment and or dosage. They sometimes misdiagnose you, telling you that you have such a disease and you stress until you become thin, only to find out there is not such. The doctor said to me that I have cancer, but I did not have cancer. I was treating cancer all the time only to find out later that it was not cancer” (East London Church Group).
Fear of unethical experimentation and suppression of Black population
6.	“Three weeks ago I was burying my father who died from prostate cancer. He was admitted several times at the hospital. I kept warning him that they will kill you in hospital as they experiment with black people.” (Soweto Traditional Healers’ group)
7.	“My view is that this is colonialism to suppress a black man not to know. My personal view is that AIDS and cancer is orchestrated by some people in America to ensure that our people die. It is aimed at destroying the kids, the future of blacks particularly. The issue is they bring terminologies we are not familiar with knowing very well that our people are not educated to a level suppose so that they will be able to understand what is being said. It is a way in which white people are trying to reduce the population otherwise they lose the vote” (Soweto Political and Community Leaders’ group).
8.	“The warnings on tobacco are written by white people so I do not agree with this western culture.” (East London Traditional Healers’ group).
Discrediting of Traditional Healing by Western Medicine and Other Stakeholders
9.	“And the way they explain it, it makes a person who has any other cancer besides breast and cervical cancer not to go for medical help early enough when there is something wrong with them and not being the breast or cervix. They end up trying traditional medicine sometimes [which is] not helpful instead of going to see the doctor” (Soweto Political and Community Leaders’ group).
10.	“Correct information should be given to people as they use traditional healers, they give irrelevant information and by the time you go to a doctor it is late because cancer spreads in the body.” (Soweto Church group)
11.	“People are dying of this because they are not getting help from the witchdoctors…” (East London Political and Community Leaders’ group).
12.	“We as traditional healers need to be recognized by medical doctors. We need to be able to get referrals of patients from them as we also refer to them” (East London Traditional Healers’ group).
13.	“We as traditional healers are portrayed badly to the community and as a result it looks like our services are stigmatized where as we want recognition from the western medicine” (East London Traditional Healers’ group).
14.	“We can also educate people as we were also trained by the Department of Health. Cross referral can also happen” (East London Traditional Healers’ group).