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News Update
Probe into Cape clinic staff accused of selling patient info
Cape Town police are investigating reports that some clinic staff are apparently selling patient folders to people wanting to fraudulently qualify for Sassa grants,...
Civil society unites to demand action on national diabetes crisis
Enough is enough, say 24 South African civil society organisations that have united to demand urgent, co-ordinated action on a disease that is now...
Court orders payout for retrenched healthcare workers
Six employees who worked for the healthcare NPO organisation Right to Care will be paid out six months’ salary after the Johannesburg Labour Court...
KZN launches traditional medicine hub
A new facility in northern KwaZulu-Natal plans to regulate and expand the traditional medicine sector and become both an economic driver as well as...
NHI challenge before ConCourt next month
The legal challenge regarding whether Parliament acted in accordance with the Constitution when it passed the NHI Act will be heard at the Constitutional...
New KZN forensic lab expected to slash backlog
A brand new forensic laboratory that was officially opened in KwaZulu-Natal last week will end the province’s reliance on facilities in other regions to...
Mining giant and nuclear agency in cancer medicine quest
In an innovative partnership, the state-owned South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) has joined forces with Sibanye-Stillwater, the multinational mining and metals processing group, in...
Stalled Grey’s Hospital repairs project moves up ‘priority list’
There’s hope yet for ailing Grey’s Hospital in Pietermaritzburg, with its non-existent aircon and inhumane operating theatre conditions, amid various delays and drawn out...
SA, UK scientists collaborate in global fungal research
A major funding injection of £4.5m from the Wellcome Trust will boost a collaborative effort between South African and British scientists to fast track...
UCT allergy researcher wins gold medal
A University of Cape Town expert in allergy research was recently acknowledged for his invaluable contribution to the field, reports News24.
Professor Jonny Peter, head...
Western Cape Health to ramp up its workforce with 800 new frontline posts
Western Cape Health is ramping up its workforce with 800 new frontline posts, but after years of austerity and with long lists of vacancies,...
Unions threaten more protests over GEMS hikes
If the planned 9% contribution increase planned by the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) is not withdrawn, unions have warned that public servants will...
Massive eye drop recall in US raises questions
A California company has recalled more than 3.1m bottles of lubricating eye drops because it had not properly tested, and thus could not prove,...
LifeLine Western Cape in funding crisis
LifeLine Western Cape, which is struggling with a funding shortfall of about R1.48m after closing its 2025/26 financial year under financial pressure, said it...
Tembisa Hospital kingpin loses more supercars
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU ) has swooped on 11 luxury vehicles, including limited-edition supercars, belonging to alleged Tembisa Hospital looting kingpin Hangwani Maumela...
Patient deaths to be probed as Dora Nginza strike ends
The Eastern Cape Department of Health is to investigate allegations that several deaths occurred when nurses and porters abandoned their posts for an illegal...
No cardiologists at Livingstone after contracts blunder
For nine critical days – from 1-9 April – Livingstone Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay had no cardiologists on duty due to an administrative blunder,...
DignitySA launches legal challenge for assisted dying
The non-profit organisation DignitySA filed an application in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) last week seeking to have the laws that criminalise medically assisted...
Dental accreditation stand-off impacts student training and graduates
Ongoing problems relating to the accreditation of dental students at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) remain unresolved, with the South African Dental...
Transgender patients in SA face 10-year state surgery clinic backlog
South Africa’s only state gender-affirming clinic provides surgery to just four patients a year, while receiving up to 10 new referrals a month –...
Activists push for menstrual Bill for free sanitary products
Civil society and social justice advocates are demanding that Parliament treat menstrual hygiene as a fundamental human right through the proposed Menstrual Health Rights...
Hundreds of mental health patients stuck in South African prisons
More than 300 declared state patients are sitting in prisons awaiting placement in health institutions, with the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services warning that...
FDA approves first Farxiga generics for type 2 diabetes
The first generic of dapagliflozin (Farxiga) tablets for adults with type 2 diabetes has been given the green light by the US Food &...
South Africa’s smallest surviving baby beats all odds
The parents of a baby born in 2002 – weighing just 410g – were told by doctors it would be best to abort because...
Call for probe after woman gives birth outside hospital
Community leaders from the Bluff, outside Durban, are demanding a full investigation into staff at Wentworth Hospital after a woman gave birth on the...
Early days, but South Africans warm to GLP-1 drugs
South Africans are taking to GLP-1 weight loss drugs like ducks to water, with a recent study revealing that one in 20 people is...
Millions committed at G7 One Health Summit
Pledges worth millions were committed at the G7 One Health Summit in Lyon, France last week, while South African generic drug company Aspen also...
Thugs target Cape EMS staff
Thieves who had robbed EMS staff while they were loading an elderly patient into an ambulance last week in Bonteheuwel, Western Cape, were nabbed...
Dutch activists sue state over waiting lists for mental healthcare
For the first time in Dutch history, the state is being held liable for the long waiting lists in mental healthcare, with non-profit foundation...
After failed criminal and misconduct prosecutions, Basson faces new HPCSA hearing
Dr Wouter Basson, 75, the former head of the apartheid government’s secret chemical and biological warfare programme, will face four disciplinary charges brought by...
Fed-up SA drugmakers want nominal medicine price rise justified
The national Department of Health has been asked to explain how it devised this year’s minimal 1.47% increase for private sector medicine sales, with...
Delayed anti-HIV doses of LEN land in SA
South Africa’s first consignment of LEN, the twice-a-year anti-HIV injection lenacapavir – 37 920 doses – landed last week at OR Tambo Airport via...
Emergency Bangladesh vaccination campaign as deaths rise
A fast-spreading measles outbreak infecting thousands of people across Bangladesh – and which has already led to 17 confirmed deaths – has prompted an...
GEMS takes financial strain as member claims rocket
The Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) processes roughly R180m in claims and 22 000 GP visits per day, and has paid out in just...
Covid jab study grinds to a halt after recruitment struggles
In an indication of the growing resistance to vaccinations and amid a groundswell of pushback from both the US administration and weak public demand,...
Pregnant women ignore experts, swayed by Trump’s autism theories
Despite the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the American Academy of Paediatrics emphasising that the science does not clearly tie Tylenol use...
KZN Health MEC slams group's anti-ARV ‘genocide’ teachings
A religious community in KwaZulu-Natal that is encouraging members to abandon modern medicine – including antiretroviral (ARV) treatment – in favour of faith healing,...
New ‘Cicada’ Covid strain appears to be low risk – Gavi
The latest BA.3.2 “Cicada” Covid-19 strain poses only a “low additional public health risk”, say Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, after news that the “highly...
School for the blind still unfinished after eight years and R200m
A semi-completed R198m campus at the Rivoni School for the Blind in Limpopo has been left to rot after multiple delays and while pupils...
Kenyan president slams healthcare scheme critics
President William Ruto has dismissed criticism of the government’s Social Health Authority (SHA), saying opponents lack the capacity to understand or interpret the scale...