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From the Frontlines
South America buckling as pandemic deaths rise
It's not only India that is racking up terrible COVID-19 statistics. The crisis in South America is deteriorating daily, with a region that has...
Patient diagnosed with schizophrenia branded a witch and killed
A wrap often worn by sangomas (ibhayi) and wandering in a stranger’s yard was all it took for Jostina Kate Sangweni to be branded...
Brazil's government in denial over COVID-19 catastrophe
Brazil’s healthcare system has been plunged into the most severe crisis in its history, with doctors overwhelmed and patients dying while they wait for...
Desperate times in Zimbabwe mean home childbirth services rampant
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...
Taxi drivers storm hospital over baby's body held in unpaid bills dispute
The storming of an Indonesian hospital to retrieve the body of a baby claimed to have been held hostage over an unpaid bill, has...
Shrines where the chained and padlocked mentally ill are 'cured'
The age-old practice of chaining the mentally ill to trees, to release them as "cured" after 40 days, persist in much of Afghanistan and...
Doctors' leader tells of Zimbabwe's 'silent genocide'
Zimbabwe's hospitals are the site of "a silent genocide", accepting all referrals but lacking most basics - gloves, bandages, even Paracetamol, writes Nomatter...
'Don't attack us!’ EMS staff plead
Eastern Cape ambulance drivers drove in convoy through Port Elizabeth townships last week, appealing to residents not to attack the people who serve the...
‘I gave up medicine to save my mental health’
Julia Patterson recalls clearly the moment she decided she had to quit two things she treasured – practising medicine and working in the UK's...
Gunshot admissions to Groote Schuur doubled in past 8 years
Massive levels of violence — the number of gunshot wound patients admitted to Groote Schuur has doubled in the eight years — coupled with abusive...
Attacks on doctors highlight security dangers in state hospitals
Free State University has resumed training at a Bloemfontein hospital, briefly suspended over security concerns following an incident where a doctor prevented a rape...
Snakebite: 'The world's biggest hidden health crisis'
A crisis in the production of antivenoms is killing tens of thousands of people a year and, reports The Daily Telegraph, scientists are hoping...
The hidden world of Cuba's 'white coat army'
Cuba's world-wide deployment of doctors is part of that nation's diplomatic strategy, as well as an annual $8bn economic lifeline. Some of the doctors,...
Rural doctors go the extra mile. Then swim a river
A Eastern Cape doctor blocked by protestors from reaching patients at a rural clinic hiked for kilometres with 25kg of medicine on his back and...
Fate of thousands unknown as rescuers struggle to reach Mozambique flood victims
The fate of entire village populations in Mozambique remain unknown as rescue workers try desperately to reach thousands still trapped in rising floodwaters unleashed...
Junior doctors lead the push to oust Sudan's dictator
The greatest challenge yet to Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir is not from superpower muscle-flexing or armed rebels but from a popular revolt led by...
The high cost rare diseases: R54m for one-off injection
The Sunday Times reports on one SA family's journey with their daughter, who has spinal muscular atrophy, trying to access hugely expensive new breakthrough...
Containing the Ebola epidemic in the face of armed conflict
‘I have been responding to different disease outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for 18 years, yet I have never seen anything...
Medical students experience 'considerably' higher rates of sexual harassment
US medical students experience about double the sexual harassment faced by their peers in sciences and engineering, according to an article in the New England...
Giving the past a seat at the table: Saying 'no' to pointless treatment
Medicine is not just about treating illnesses – it often involve understanding the necessity to say ‘no’ to further pointless treatment, writes Dr Lisa...
Always make sure to get the name of the dog…
It was 1 July, my first day of residency, and a queasy feeling lodged in my stomach as I donned my new white coat,...
Rwanda: Where a sore throat can become a death sentence
In poor countries, like Rwanda, strep throat often goes undiagnosed and can lead to rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease, writes The New York Times. Since...
SA psychiatrist's insomnia therapy hailed in the UK
We are living through an epidemic of sleeplessness, but the medical establishment has largely ignored the problem, reports The Guardian. A radical new therapy...
Almost two decades later, 9/11 is still claiming victims
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...
Medals returned to protest the treatment of immigrants in UK's NHS
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...
Paramedic and doctor speak out over abuse of women in the line of duty
As women marched against violence and femicide as part of the #NationalShutdown‚ a doctor and paramedic have spoken up about the appalling abuse they...
World's highest ER now brings affordable medicine to the Sherpas
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...
One psychiatrist's battle against institutionalised wrongdoing
Dr Kiran Sukeri, formerly employed at the Tower Psychiatric Hospital in the Eastern Cape, has been smeared and harrassed for blowing the whistle on...
When the time comes for a doctor to move on…
The health care system is not kind to the chronically ill and marginally insured, and it is not particularly kind to their doctors, either,...
Mahikeng doctor defies strike violence to deliver babies
A Mahikeng doctor defied burning tyres and barricaded roads to deliver eight babies, four by Caesarean, when violent strike action virtually closed down the...
Mass shootings point to a greater role for the public in dealing with casualties
What the recent Las Vegas shooting showed, trauma experts said, is that nascent efforts to teach and encourage the public to help the wounded...