Juta MedicalBrief

Women who had just given birth in Eastern Cape hospitals had to sleep on cold floors and benches because of a bed shortage, the Commission for Gender Equality told the Portfolio Committee on Health last week, adding that its investigation into six hospitals also found patients sharing beds, blood on the floors, and mould-covered showers used by women after surgery, reports IOL. The findings, said Tsietsi Shuping, the commission’s head of legal services, came from hearings with the hospitals and the provincial Health Department, and from unannounced visits by commissioners in October 2023. Committee chairperson Faith Muthambi has now given the...

The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has issued an alert to healthcare professionals of the risk of angioedema during treatment with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (e.g, captopril, enalapril, lisinopril, perindopril, quinapril, ramipril, trandolapril). It warned that treatment should be stopped and should never be reintroduced in the event of an initial occurrence of ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema: prescribing/dispensing error may result in inadvertent re-exposure, which can be potentially fatal. To minimise the risk of re-exposure, doctors should record and communicate a patient’s previous ACE inhibitor-induced angioedema, and initiate appropriate alternative antihypertensive treatment, where clinically indicated, it advised. ACE inhibitors –...

While some desperate patients are turning to veterinarians for their epilepsy medicines as the national medicine shortage crisis reaches alarming levels, it turns out the Health Department has been relying on Section 21 medicines – legally authorised but unregistered or unlicensed – for a decade, reports News24. Nationwide shortages are due, in part, to ballooning unpaid debts by all provinces (except the Western Cape) to struggling suppliers, who are owed R24bn – with the Auditor-General having long flagged poor financial controls, inadequate record-keeping and a lack of accountability as the root causes of the escalating crisis. And while the department has...

A seven-year standoff between the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the SA Dental Technicians Council is preventing students from completing their practical training, with Parliament now recommending urgent mediation to resolve the issue, writes Liezl Human for GroundUp. The two had reached an impasse about new facilities at CPUT for dental students, but are also stuck in an accreditation dispute going back to 2019. In a petition to Parliament in June, students said their academic programme had been disrupted since May 2025. Marlene Bezuidenhout, CPUT head of department for dental sciences, told Parliament’s Petitions Committee last week that the university had to...

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi must resign and a nationwide parliamentary inquiry into health procurement should be launched, according to the MK Party after the latest governmental scandal involving an alleged R180m being spent on communication contracts linked to the National Health Insurance (NHI) and other health campaigns, reports IOL. The party wants the investigation to also probe procurement processes within all nine provincial health departments from 2019 to date, and for the Hawks and SIU to freeze active payments to the companies awarded the contracts and investigate officials who approved the purchase orders. MK Party spokesperson Sifiso Mahlangu said the party was demanding political accountability...

The row over Gauteng Emergency Medical Services (EMS) staff contracts and overtime is unresolved, with 21 people being charged and facing disciplinary action, reports The Citizen. The dispute is linked to 160-hour monthly contracts and unpaid overtime. The personnel, from the Selby, Hillbrow, and Mofolo bases, have refused to work beyond their contracted 160 hours a month without extra pay, saying their 12-hour shift roster of four days on and four days off have resulted in an additional 20 to 25 hours of work each month. They said they had fulfilled their contractual obligations after completing 160 hours, and that when the...

Almost 200 people have been placed under medical observation in Russia’s Irkutsk region in eastern Siberia after a scientist died from suspected exposure to plague – but which authorities are strenuously denying – reports CNBC. According to local media reports, 189 people were being monitored after the illness of an employee at an anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk. Russia’s public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said on Sunday that she had been diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown etiology” and that the “sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk region and the cities of Irkutsk and Shelekhov remained stable”. The agency said expanded testing had not detected micro-organisms...

The withdrawal of US research funding had cost South Africa’s science system a substantial R2.5bn, putting research jobs and student degrees at risk, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande told the Cape Argus last week. The cuts had also exposed the country’s dependence on foreign support and weaknesses in how critical research programmes are financed, he added. Nzimande was expected to release the latest report of the Ministerial Working Group on Science, Technology and Innovation Funding in Pretoria – it will be open for pubic comment until 31 December. The group was established after the US withdrew funding for South African...

In a case that has been dragging on for years, a KwaZulu-Natal man accused of using a fraudulent MBChB degree to register as a doctor appeared in the Durban Specialised Commercial Crime Court last week – where the matter was postponed to 19 November, reports IOL. Reshal Dayanand (39) faces charges of fraud, forgery and contravening the Health Professions Act and Electronic Communications and Transactions Act. According to the Hawks, Dayanand studied at the University of KwaZulu-Natal between 2007 and 2015, but had been “academically excluded in 2013 for poor performance … and was re-admitted in 2015 through the Dean’s discretion”. However, he...

A BackaBuddy campaign has already raised more than R700 000 for hospital bills for a little boy badly burned after falling into a bath of boiling hot water – but Gauteng Health has rejected claims that the family is being invoiced for his care at a public hospital, saying that because he is under six years old, treatment is free, reports IOL. The campaign says the family of three-year-old Peyton Wahl is facing medical costs of about R698 030 – this after the toddler, from Kempton Park in Ekurhuleni, fell into the bath filled with hot water late in August. According...

The National Department of Health has admitted that it hasn’t conducted an oversight visit in Cuba for four years – this as shocking conditions have been described by South African students on the Nelson Mandela-Fidel Castrol (NMFC) medical training programme in that country, reports Daily Maverick. Bad and inadequate food, one toilet for 13 students, days without water, and a barely survivable daily stipend are making their lives hell, they say. The NMFC programme was launched three decades ago “as a transformative pathway to medical careers”, offering promising students state-funded opportunities in Cuba. While it initially provided a vital alternative for those...

Merck has announced that it will no longer manufacture or market the antibacterial combination drug Recarbrio as “part of an ongoing review of its portfolio and unrelated to any product safety or quality issues”, reports CIDRAP News. A combination of the antibiotic imipenem-cilastatin and the beta-lactamase inhibitor relebactam, Recarbrio was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019 to treat adults with complicated urinary tract infections and intra-abdominal infections and no alternative treatment options. It was approved for adults with hospital-acquired and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia in 2020 and expanded for use in children in 2025. Recarbrio was developed...

A baby boy has broken the birthweight records at Life Beacon Bay Hospital in KuGompo (East London), tipping the scales at 6.37kg when he was born on 20 September, and smashing  the facility’s previous record of 5.42kg set in 2019, reports News24. Born to Lisolethu Nzungu and Athini Thene, Izimakhe was delivered via Caesarean section. Nzungu (35) from Mdantsane said he was her second child. They were discharged on 22 September. Lyndee Hartwanger, Life Beacon Bay’s hospital manager, said the previous case recorded at the facility was in 2019 – a girl weighing 5.42kg. The average weight for a baby in South Africa...

A senior member of Congo’s ruling party was killed in a beating after taking part in a radio programme to raise awareness about the Ebola outbreak, reports Reuters – this as infections rise to more than 8 000 and nearly 4 000 deaths have been recorded. The incident happened on Sunday in North Kivu province, which has recently become a hotspot in the ongoing outbreak. Marie-Celestin Karondwa, acting president of the UDPS party’s federal executive committee and a party spokesperson, was attacked by residents ⁠of his neighbourhood after appearing on a radio show during which he promoted Ebola prevention measures, the UDPS federation...

The FDA has approved tiratricol (Emcitate) to treat peripheral thyrotoxicosis in patients with monocarboxylate transporter 8 (MCT8) deficiency, the agency announced last week, marking the first approval for this rare genetic disorder, reports MedPage Today. The thyroid hormone receptor agonist is indicated for adults and children with MCT8 deficiency, also known as Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome. “The challenge in treating MCT8 deficiency has always been that the protein needed to deliver thyroid hormone into cells is the one that isn’t working,” said Hylton Joffe, MD, MMSc, of the FDA’s Centre for Drug Evaluation and Research. “This drug sidesteps that problem, as its active ingredient, tiratricol,...

Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case on Tuesday after a Kenyan citizen who had travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo died in Nairobi, making it the fourth country to record an infection linked to the epidemic in the DRC, reports Reuters. So far more than 8 000 cases have been reported. Uganda reported 20 cases and two deaths earlier in the year but was declared Ebola-free in August. A doctor who returned to France in June from Congo tested positive but there was no further spread ​of the virus. The Kenyan patient, who had lived in the DRC for seven years, had...

In efforts to sustain the use of GLP-1 drugs by its members – most of whom stop claiming for the treatment within six months – Discovery’s rewards scheme Vitality is stepping up its support, saying sustained weight loss requires more than drugs, reports Business Tech. International research shows many patients stop treatment within a year, while an analysis of claims from Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) members shows most stop claiming for the medicines after less than six months. Vitality will now offer people who join its HealthyWeight programme a doctor-led assessment that may include a prescription for anti-obesity medicines, and...

A jury in America found Yale New Haven Hospital negligent after an 85-year-old woman was left blind after a 2019 surgery, awarding her a payout of $15.1m, reports WTNH News8. Lioudmila Pylev, then 78, went blind after a toxic antiseptic solution was allowed to drip into and stay in her only seeing eye while she was unconscious during brain surgery on 2 April 2019. The operation was to treat a non-cancerous brain tumour. The case alleged, and the jury concluded, that neurosurgeon Dr Jennifer Moliterno negligently handled toxic antiseptic chemicals, causing permanent loss of vision in Pyleva’s right eye. The chemicals that...

An American woman is suing a hospital after doctors amputated the wrong leg, then four months later taking off the correct limb, leaving her a double amputee, reports NBC News. Sharon Jacks (74), filed her lawsuit this month in Ohio after her left leg was amputated at Selby General Hospital in September 2025. The surgery was meant to remove her right leg. Jacks, an army veteran, then underwent the originally intended procedure four months later, said her attorney Brad Layne. Both legs were amputated below the knee. Jacks and her husband named nine defendants in the suit, including the hospital and the...