Nelisile Gantsana was suicidal when he realised his penis would not grow back after a botched circumcision in 2010.

He was 16 at the time.His fellow initiates said that because he was young, his penis would grow back. It never did.

"The first year passed without anything happening. I panicked. I wanted to end my life," he said of the trauma at an initiation school in Lusikisiki. "But I had hope."

Gantsana, 23, is now one of 30 who have had a penile reconstruction, at a total cost of about R15m to the provincial health department. Unlike a penis transplant, which costs less and depends on a donor, reconstruction takes muscles and skin grafts from the patient. Gantsana was operated on in July.

"At the initiation school our wounds were treated by young, inexperienced traditional nurses," he said.