Peter Hall (56) had surgery in Christchurch in June for prostate cancer, having been diagnosed in May.
Kampta Samalia is, at present, the only permanent urologist at Mercy Hospital and Dunedin Hospital.
His colleague, Narayanan Sampangi, died from illness last month.
Mr Hall said he "pushed through" his result by spending thousands of dollars privately obtaining a diagnosis. Otherwise, he would have waited many months on the public system, he said.
When he got his biopsy result in May, he was told by an "embarrassed" Mercy Hospital staff member he could not be seen until July. Instead of waiting, he went to Christchurch.
There, he paid for a private specialist appointment, and was offered a public operation, within six weeks, in Christchurch. However, as he preferred a less invasive robotic procedure, he went private, also in Christchurch.
His cancer was at the lower end of the aggressive grades, but certainly not something to "muck around" with, he said.
Mr Hall wants others to know they can seek help in Christchurch.
They might need to pay for the appointment, but could still access public system operations, he said.
Yesterday, Southern District Health Board chief medical officer David Tulloch, who is also an Invercargill-based urologist, said through a spokesman the situation was being managed on an Otago-Southland basis.
Mr Tulloch and a second Invercargill urologist were assisting Mr Samalia, and patients and surgeons were being moved around to enable treatment. No patients had had to leave the district, he said.
"The service continues to recruit both locum support and long-term staff," Mr Tulloch said.
The urologist shortage is mentioned in a report to the hospital advisory committee meeting today, which said locums had been secured for "some periods of the next few months", while international recruitment was under way.
A district-wide mitigation plan was being developed.
Mercy Hospital chief executive Richard Whitney said yesterday Mr Samalia was Mercy's sole urologist since Mr Sampangi's death.
The situation was far from ideal, and was affecting Mercy's ability to deliver the service.
