From the Frontlines
Almost two decades later, 9/11 is still claiming victims
September 12th, 2018 Tens of thousands of people who lived or worked in the neighbourhood of New York's World Trade Centre after the 9/11 terror attack found themselves breathing in air thick with toxic fumes and particles. More than 43,000 have since been certified...
Medals returned to protest the treatment of immigrants in UK's NHS
August 29th, 2018 Around 20 aid workers honoured by the UK government for their work in West Africa during the 2014-15 outbreak of Ebola disease have returned their medals as a protest against the “hostile environment” of policies on migrants introduced in the...
Paramedic and doctor speak out over abuse of women in the line of duty
August 8th, 2018 As women marched against violence and femicide as part of the #NationalShutdown‚ a doctor and paramedic have spoken up about the appalling abuse they endure as women in the line of duty, reports The Times. Kim Williams‚ a paramedic with the...
Groote Schuur Trauma Centre: 'Overloaded with violence'
July 11th, 2018 Weekends are the busiest times at the Groote Schuur Trauma Centre in Cape Town. In the early hours of the morning doctors, nurses and support staff are on their feet for hours at a time during their 12-hour shifts and have very little time to...
The unique role of doctors in evaluating torture and persecution
July 11th, 2018 With applications for asylum in the US increasing sharply, a paper from a team of asylum medicine and law experts highlights the important role of doctors in evaluating refugees' claims of torture and persecution. To qualify for asylum in the US,...
World's highest ER now brings affordable medicine to the Sherpas
June 13th, 2018 Countless foreign climbers who have run into trouble on Mount Everest’s unforgiving slopes have been saved by the local ER services. Now these medics are providing affordable medical care for the Nepali Sherpas, the guides who are the backbone...
One psychiatrist's battle against institutionalised wrongdoing
June 6th, 2018 Dr Kiran Sukeri, formerly employed at the Tower Psychiatric Hospital in the Eastern Cape, has been smeared and harrassed for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing in the state mental health sector. Dr Kiran Sukeri, employed at the Tower...
When the time comes for a doctor to move on...
May 23rd, 2018 The health care system is not kind to the chronically ill and marginally insured, and it is not particularly kind to their doctors, either, writes Abigail Zuger, in a New England Journal of Medicine article. Zuger, of the Mount Sinai Health...
Mahikeng doctor defies strike violence to deliver babies
May 2nd, 2018 A Mahikeng doctor defied burning tyres and barricaded roads to deliver eight babies, four by Caesarean, when violent strike action virtually closed down the hospital, reports City Press. Amid the barricaded roads, burning tyres and black smoke...
Mass shootings point to a greater role for the public in dealing with casualties
October 18th, 2017 What the recent Las Vegas shooting showed, trauma experts said, is that nascent efforts to teach and encourage the public to help the wounded in mass casualty emergencies should be expanded, writes The New York Times. Roughly half of the 58...
Junior doctors are 'on their own' if they dare confront bullying culture
June 28th, 2017 Last year, Dr Yumna Moosa, a community service medical officer, tried to rally young doctors against SA medicine's culture of bullying. Now, she warns that junior doctors who stand up are on their own: 'Your only option will be to fight in...
More well-trained midwives could alleviate SA obstetric crisis
May 3rd, 2017 With the crisis in obstetrics in South Africa there is no doubt that there should and now will be more focus on midwife deliveries for low-risk patients, writes Sydney Grové, general manager of Origin Family-Centred Maternity Hospital in Parow,...
WATCH: A trauma team on the battlefield of the Cape Flats
April 19th, 2017 Cape Town has the highest number of reported assaults in SA and it is on the gang war battlefield of the Cape Flats that much of the violence occurs. A TimesLive report and video. Gunshot wounds, stabbings and blunt trauma are the order of...
Sugared beverages: 'An enemy with a mask of a friend' - an edocrinologist's plea to Parliament
February 8th, 2017 'It saddened me to see young students marching last year for free education while carrying sugary beverages.' Endocrinologist Dr Sundeep Ruder addresses a plea to the SA Parliament in support of the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, drawing on his...
Getting the word out to off-the-beaten-track clinics
February 1st, 2017 It's a perpetual challenge to get clinical information out to rural facilities. So Briony Chisholm, information pharmacist at the Medicines Information Centre of the University of Cape Town, took to the dusty backroads to deliver information packs...