Listen
Southland man Blair Vining was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in 2018 and given just weeks to live.
He sought treatment privately after being told there would be an eight to ten week wait through the public health system- a wait he would not have survived.
He died in 2019 but not before he and his wife Melissa fronted a cancer conference in Wellington where the couple said the government had failed him and 'long waiting lists for cancer treatment were cruel and killed people'.
They described making 19 desperate phone calls to seek urgent help for him when he was at his lowest ebb.
Blair's widow Melissa talks to Lisa Owen.