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Medico-Legal
Gauteng Premier’s Office admits ‘possible corruption’ in Charlotte Maxeke repairs
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has denied it is probing possible irregularities and tender corruption linked to the repairs of Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic...
Govt seeks to overturn High Court ruling that lockdown tobacco ban was unconstitutional
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has heard that the tobacco ban during lockdown level three was justifiable under the Constitution. The court was...
Gauteng Health pays junior doctors’ salary arrears
After complaints from the SA Medical Association (SAMA) over the non-payment of medical interns working at state hospitals in Gauteng, the provincial Health Department...
Sackler family to pay $6bn for its role in OxyContin opioid crisis
The wealthy Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, is to pay $6bn for its role in America’s opioid epidemic under a new deal. A...
University of California loses second gene-editing patent case
A second attempt by the University of California (UC) Berkeley to obtain lucrative patent rights to the gene-editing technology CRISPR were stymied again recently...
Radiological Society challenges legality of Life Healthcare expansion
Private hospital group Life Healthcare’s plans to expand into the SA imaging market have run into opposition from the country’s key industry association for...
Pretoria High Court grants parental rights in lesbian insemination case
A Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has declared section 40 of the Children’s Act unconstitutional, ruling that a lesbian, whose artificially fertilised egg cells were...
Uganda to impose fines or imprisonment for COVID-19 vaccine refusals
Uganda will impose the equivalent of up to R17,400 fine or six months jail on people who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19, in...
Senegal demonstrators demand harsher laws against same-sex relations
Thousands of people in Dakar last week attended a rally demanding harsher laws to clamp down on same sex relations, reports Radio France International....
Pretoria diagnostic radiologists have assets seized over R52m tax debt
Assets belonging to a practice of two Pretoria diagnostic radiologists have been attached by the Sheriff of the High Court over outstanding returns and...
Cape Town teacher’s urgent application on vaccination struck with costs
A teacher has lost her High Court bid to stop the independent school network from implementing a mandatory COVID vaccination policy. Kaylee Sage de...
Life Esidimeni inquest: ‘He vomited for four weeks and then he starved to death’
Jaco Stols, one of the 144 victims of the Life Esidimeni tragedy, vomited continuously for four weeks before dying of hunger and thirst, said...
No KZN companies blacklisted despite SIU findings of PPE fraud
None of the close to 100 companies implicated in PPE corruption by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has been blacklisted by the KZN government...
Nigeria’s anti-tobacco law remains ungazetted after 7 years
Seven years after the ban on tobacco smoking in public places was signed into law by Nigeria’s former President Goodluck Jonathan, the Act has...
Health activists seek access to SA's confidential vaccine supply agreements
The Health Justice Initiative (HJI) has filed a motion in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) demanding the confidential commercial details around South Africa’s COVID-19...
Parliamentary anger over 1 Military Hospital’s R60m ’renovations’
Parliamentarians are “shocked and seething” that despite the millions spent to “renovate” 1 Military Hospital over the past two decades, the institution is still...
HPCSA does U-turn on rejecting intern’s Afrikaans degree certificate
After civil rights organisation AfriForum stepped in to assist a psychology student with legal action against the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)...
EC doctor arrested and charged in connection with R18m in RAF claims
A medical doctor in Mbizana has been arrested and charged with fraud relating to R18m in claims made against the Road Accident Fund (RAF).
The...
Ecuador to allow rape victims access to abortions
Ecuadorian legislators have approved regulations to allow women and girls access to abortions in cases of rape, after a Constitutional Court ruling that decriminalised...
Britain launches ‘menopause taskforce’ to tackle workplace taboos
A new specialist team of ministers and medical experts will tackle taboos and stigmas surrounding menopause in the workplace, the UK government has announced.
According...
HPCSA disciplinaries: Exploitative relationships in therapy, bad investment advice, and mismanaged bleeding
A psychologist who entered into an “exploitative relationship” with clients, a doctor who encouraged patients to invest in a failing company, and failure to resuscitate...
Life Esidimeni inquiry: NGO had grown men sleeping in baby cots
Adult mental healthcare patients slept in children’s cots at an NGO to which they were moved after their removal from Life Esidimeni, heard the...
Refugees and asylum-seekers have ‘constitutional right’ to NHI care
The argument that National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill discriminates against the constitutional rights of asylum seekers' and refugees' access to healthcare services, found a...
SAHPRA refuses to release documents relating to Pfizer approval
The special appeals committee hearings into COVID-19 vaccines for children ground to a halt when the parties fought over the health regulator's SAHPRA’s decision...
El Salvador releases woman jailed for 10 years after miscarriage
El Salvador has released another woman imprisoned for aggravated homicide who, after suffering an obstetric emergency, was accused of aborting her pregnancy in a...
Public Protector investigates DNA backlog at SAPS forensic labs
The unacceptable delays and the handling of the massive DNA backlog at the national SAPS Forensic Science Laboratories are being investigated by the Office...
Mkhize again in court to challenge SIU on tender award findings
Former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize is taking his fight against his dismissal straight to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s door, writes City Press.
Mkhize was axed after...
Botswana: Vaccination booths at borders and harsh penalties for non-vaccination
Returning Botswana citizens or visitors unwilling to get a COVID-19 vaccination, face a fine of R6,500 (Pula 5,000), a year in jail, or both.
Vaccination...
Rhodes University’s mandatory jab policy challenged in court
A group of Rhodes University students and employees are challenging in court the university’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy.
A Daily Dispatch report says the newly-formed...
Anti-abortion doctor asks High Court to order HPCSA to hold his disciplinary hearing
A doctor, who five years ago allegedly tried to dissuade a woman from an abortion, has asked the High Court to compel the Health...
SCA upholds listeriosis subpoena appeal against Tiger Brands
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has upheld an appeal by commercial pathology laboratory Deltamune and others relating to the validity and enforceability of...
Legal fee capping for medical negligence claims – UK government
A UK government plan to launch a consultation tackling “increasing and disproportionate legal fees” for lower value medical clinical negligence claims has been criticised...
Dozens of former Life Esidimeni patients remain missing
Almost 60 former Life Esidimeni patients are still missing after the botched move of more than 1,000 patients from its psychiatric facilities to ill-equipped,...
Accused paediatric surgeon Dr Peter Beale struck from HPCSA register
The Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) has confirmed that paediatric surgeon Professor Peter Beale, accused of being responsible for the deaths of two...
Public mask-wearing remains compulsory, warns Health minister
Wearing a mask in public is still mandatory under level one lockdown regulations, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said last Friday (4 February). Any person...
Vaccine workplace dismissals: CCMA confirms 117 disputes lodged
Only two of 117 mandatory vaccination disputes lodged with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) have been arbitrated so far, reports City...
Fresh calls to lift State of Disaster and legal challenge from Sakeliga
Sakeliga, a lobby group largely representing the interests of Afrikaans business owners, has become the latest organisation to launch a legal challenge against the...
Solidarity’s urgent application to stop vaccine mandate dismissed by Labour Court
An urgent application by trade union Solidarity challenging a Pretoria company’s policy on mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations was struck off the Labour Court roll in...
Phaahla appoints appeal committee to adjudicate on vaccines for adolescents
Health Minister Joe Phaahla has appointed a five-member committee to adjudicate a challenge to the COVID-19 vaccination of adolescents aged 12 to 17, reports...
SAPS officers in court over PPE corruption
South African Police Service (SAPS) members were among 15 people making their first appearance in the Palm Ridge Specialised Crimes Court court on Tuesday...