January 13th, 2021A viral video on social media that shows seriously ill patients lying unattended, while one patient — who later died — pleads for her breathing tube, has been slammed by the head of KwaZulu-Natal Health as “robbing patients of their...
December 16th, 2020An elegantly simple free phone application called Vula is revolutionising patient treatment and referrals between primary care facilities and tertiary hospitals in South Africa, providing timely, accurate and detailed information to help save more...
December 9th, 2020Jake Haendel spent months trapped in his body, silent and unmoving but fully conscious. Most people never emerge from ‘locked-in syndrome’ but Haendel did and his account, as told by Josh Wilbur in The Guardian, provides some fascinating...
December 2nd, 2020Last week, Gift of the Givers’ Dr Imtiaz Sooliman went to Nelson Mandela Bay's beleaguered doctors and nurses with an invitation, writes Estelle Ellis in Daily Maverick 168. “Give me your list. Tell me what you need. Add coffee. Add tea. Add...
In an article in the South African magazine Modern Medicine, KZN general practitioner Dr Shankara Chetty outlines his observations of the COVID-19 pandemic and the treatment protocols he used for 200 symptomatic patients of all ages – all of whom...
September 23rd, 2020In India, relentlessly rising case numbers are causing another emergency - serious mental health problems among COVID-19 patients, reports BBC News.
Many recovering coronavirus patients in India are experiencing mental health distress, said Dr...
September 2nd, 2020The situation in Zimbabwean health care was already so bad last year that there was a protracted national doctor's strike. COVID-19 has made matters far, far worse writes an anonymous doctor for African Arguments.
The doctor, anonymous for...
August 19th, 2020A Western Cape GP soon realised the limited potential of tele-consultations in a poor community, which meant gruelling days of face-to-face appointments and house calls in full protective gear.
While ever-changing guidelines and protocols,...
August 12th, 2020Despite talk by KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu about how superior public facilities in the province are to private hospitals, most COVID-19 patients are opting for private care, according to a Daily Maverick analysis.
Ideology...
July 1st, 2020"Emotionally drained" are the words two nurses, who work in Groote Schuur Hospital's C27 ICU COVID Ward, have used to describe how they feel. "I'm emotionally drained from yesterday and now I have to face today," Verna Collins and Judith Parenzee...
March 4th, 2020
Wang Xiuying, a self-proclaimed pessimist who’s trying to self-quarantine in Wuhan, describes in London Review of Books how misinformation and disinformation dominates lives in a China trying to deal with COVID-19.
He writes: The new...
February 12th, 2020
A team of medical scientists in Sierra Leon, part of the Predict international network, is in search of a holy grail to virus hunters: the next deadly pathogen that could sweep across the globe, writes The Telegraph.
Gradually, plumes of bats...
January 29th, 2020
About 700 traditional ‘cutters’ in Sierra Leone have pledged to abandon and advocate against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is still not illegal in the country. According to the UN, Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of FGM in...
January 15th, 2020
Australia's devastating wildfires are causing serious public health effects, especially for those with underlying lung and heart conditions. Hospitals have also seen an increase in people with anxiety and depression.
According to a WBUR report,...
January 8th, 2020
Nowhere is it more dangerous to be an albino than in Malawi, where they are captured by the albino-hunting gangs and either killed immediately or taken to places of ritual sacrifice.
For Malawi’s 10,000-odd albinos, being born with the...
December 4th, 2019
Zimbabwe's worsening health crisis is forcing desperate women to seek out traditional birth attendants, who often deliver babies using their bare hands with no sterilisation or post-natal care, reports API.
When her contractions became...
