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News Update
Eastern Cape nurses down tools, demand rural allowance
About 500 nurses and nursing assistants at six hospitals and clinics under the Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape protested on Monday,...
Urgent action needed to reduce teen pregnancies – KZN Premier
KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala has called for action to reduce teenage pregnancies in the province, which saw more than 18 000 births by girls...
Pharmacists concerned about Post Office's delivery of chronic meds
The Pharmaceutical Society of SA has expressed concern about the national Health Department’s decision to use the SA Post Office (Sapo) to distribute chronic...
Crime adds to burden carried by SA healthcare workers
The medical profession has emerged from the battering of COVID-19 scarred and shaken – exhausted and overworked; in many cases, under-resourced and under-appreciated, and...
Vital equipment not functioning at military hospital – patients turned away
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is investigating allegations that Wynberg 2 Military Hospital in Cape Town is turning patients away because of...
Ethiopian healthcare buckles under malnutrition crisis
Dubti Hospital, is the only national referral hospital in the Afar region, in northern Ethiopia, has seen admissions of severely malnourished children rise by...
Highest levels yet for concussion rates in elite rugby – union
Concussion rates in elite English rugby, a concern for a number of years, have hit their highest levels since records began, according to the...
Tussle over medical schemes' role could undermine NHI roll-out – NGO research
The current approach to a contentious draft provision in the National Health Insurance (NHI) has the potential to undermine the implementation of the scheme...
Phaahla calls for scrapping of COVID masks, regulations
Health Minister Joe Phaahla has proposed scrapping the coronavirus regulations that require mask wearing indoors, limit the size of gatherings and stipulate testing and...
Free State hospitals: patient waits 7 months for surgery, others sleep in chairs
Surgical waiting lists are not unexpected in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the situation is particularly acute in the Free State, for...
Nearly 900 operations cancelled at Bara – Gauteng Health MEC
Some 870 operations have been cancelled at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto this year for various reasons, including stolen cables, no clean linen...
Groote Schuur donors beef up resources to tackle surgery backlog
Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH) still needs R2.7m to reach its R15m target needed this year to reduce its backlog of 6,000 operations.
Last month the...
Health minister's advisers recommend more research on long COVID after study
Health Minister Joe Phaahla’s COVID-19 advisory committee has made its first recommendations about long COVID, but conceded that many questions remain about the condition.
In...
MEC urged to intervene in ongoing Eastern Cape ambulance protests
The South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) in Fort Beaufort is calling for Eastern Cape Health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth and Premier Oscar Mabuyane to...
North West Health intervention: challenges persist four years later
It has been almost four years since the North West Department of Health was put under administration in 2018, but some healthcare users in...
Eastern Cape nurses demand special rural allowance
Hundreds of nurses picketed outside the provincial Department of Health call centre in East London last week, claiming they were owed a special rural...
WHO to rename monkeypox to ‘combat racism and stigma’
In the same way COVID-19 became associated with China, so too is the monkeypox virus being stigmatised with a link to Africa, a group...
Gauteng Health and Wits sign MOA to boost healthcare delivery
In a significant step towards bolstering healthcare services in Gauteng, a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the Gauteng Department of Health and Wits University...
Putin treated for cancer, 'definitely sick' – US intelligence reports
High ranking US military officials believe that “the end is near” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose health has been a subject of intense...
Gauteng Health Department owes suppliers more than R4bn
The Gauteng Health Department owes suppliers about R4.7bn, some of it dating back to 2017.
While the department said the delays in payments were because...
Suspected typhoid, cholera outbreak in North Korea after COVID explosion
North Korea has had an outbreak of an unidentified intestinal sickness, adding to the strain caused by the spread of COVID-19.
The official KCNA news...
NHI to be introduced ‘incrementally’ – Phaahla
The National Health Insurance (NHI) is not going to happen “at full blast”, and medical schemes will continue to cover aspects not being covered...
DoH labels regulations criticism 'anti-progressive', 'sabotage'
Public participation group DearSA has released a slew of internal emails from the Department of Health (DoH), describing opposition to government’s proposed health regulations...
€15m pledge to increase Biovac vaccine production
The European Investment Bank’s first support for vaccine investment in this country, to be financed by a €15m European Union support grant, is expected...
New TB testing strategy showing promising results in SA
Under a new tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis strategy, people considered at high risk of TB are offered molecular TB tests, even if they do not...
Serious adverse event stats keep climbing in Gauteng government hospitals
Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) have soared at Gauteng public hospitals, with 6,910 SAEs recorded last year compared with 4,701 SAEs in 2020 and 4,170...
Another multi-billion rand loan for SA’s vaccine programme
The Treasury and the World Bank have said in a joint statement that more can be done to increase vaccine coverage in South Africa...
Baby mix-up – Durban hospital staff disciplined
Nursing staff at Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital in Umlazi, south of Durban, have been disciplined by the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department after the accidental switching...
New York fund apologises for role in 40-year Tuskegee syphilis study
A public apology was made this weekend in the United States for a shameful experiment decades years ago, in which doctors allowed black men...
Mediclinic board turns down cash bid to buy it out
The Mediclinic hospital group has rejected a cash offer by a Remgro consortium to buy it out. The board said the offer “significantly undervalued...
Another blaze at Steve Biko Hospital
Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria has suffered another fire – the second in just two weeks. The blaze is believed to have started...
EC Health Department ordered to pay overdue bills for orthopaedic implants
A crisis has been temporarily averted at Livingstone Hospital in Gqeberha, where orthopaedic implants supplied by Johnson & Johnson were halted last week after...
€75m boost for Dakar vaccine facility while Aspen sits idle
Thanks to a massive financial injection from the European Investment Bank (EIB), a new vaccine facility in Senegal is expected to significantly reduce Africa’s...
Ambulance shortages and paramedic attacks cripple Gauteng emergency services
With just 300 ambulances (of 1,221) on Gauteng’s roads, the province falls far short of meeting the national standards for emergency vehicles. This is...
Hawks nab PPE fraud suspects, Hamilton Ndlovu banned from state business
Mpumalanga Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs head Samukelo Ngubane handed himself over to the Hawks on Monday in connection with the awarding of a...
Fewer COVID deaths predicted for Africa this year – WHO
COVID-19 deaths in Africa this year are anticipated to decrease by almost 94% compared with 2021, when the pandemic was at its height, predicts...
Staff vaccine mandates halted at Woolworths, Dis-Chem
Companies are beginning to relax their COVID-19 requirements for staff after months of enforcing vaccination mandates in the workplace.
In numerous firms countrywide, employees who...
Suspected measles cases in Gauteng
Four cases of suspected measles have been reported in Gauteng: three from Tshwane and one on the West Rand.
News24 reports that all four cases...
Over 50s to get second booster shot
ve The Health Department said the only stipulation is there must be at least 120 days or four months since the person received their...
No casualties after fires at two hospitals, in two provinces
Hospital fires at two institutions in the past week were contained before any major damages were suffered, reports MedicalBrief.
There were no injuries in the...