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News Update
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...
Job-seekers scammed by bogus hospital website
A bogus website is luring desperate job-seekers to a non-existent medical facility, supposedly under the auspices of a healthcare group, but using the address...
Aspen rebukes global vaccine bodies for ‘shirking responsibilities’
The lack of orders from Aspen’s vaccine facility in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, has left not just shareholders and the company disappointed, but also the...
Cancer claims shoot up as COVID focus takes eye off other deadly diseases
Cancer-related disability and critical illness insurance claims have shot up as the focus on COVID-19 saw less attention being paid to other deadly diseases,...
SAHPRA scraps Ivermectin programme, advises against use
SA’s medicines regulator has advised doctors to stop prescribing the anti-parasitic drug, Ivermectin, for COVID-19 and has scrapped a controversial programme allowing doctors and...
Pregnant women suffer “obstetric violence” in health systems
“Obstetric violence”, or mistreatment of pregnant women and neglect during child birth is prevalent in health facilities across all provinces, demonstrating a pattern of...
Gauteng hospitals deteriorate further after damning PP report
Two years after the Public Protector (PP) found that the Gauteng Health Department had failed to ensure appropriate conditions for the delivery of healthcare services,...
Patients suffer as Eastern Cape ambulance crisis remains unresolved
In the Eastern Cape, it is common for patients in rural areas to wait more than eight hours for an ambulance. Some of them...
FBI’s free DNA system coming to SA soon
A deal between South Africa and the FBI in the US for the use of its high tech DNA system Codis is in the...
Jo’burg R590bn pathology services building unfinished after six years
Almost six years after construction began on the new forensic pathology services building in Johannesburg, the multimillion-rand project next to Helen Joseph Hospital is...
Senegal Health Minister fired after babies die in blaze
Senegal’s President Macky Sall fired his health minister on Thursday as his country mourned the death of 11 newborn babies in a hospital fire...
Floundering Rahima Moosa Hospital ‘needs to admit it has a crisis’
The Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg continues to make headlines, with its facilities buckling under the strain of faulty equipment, lack...
Netcare-EthiQal project aims to slash medical negligence claims
Netcare is implementing a new project it believes will drastically reduce successful medical negligence claims.
Beeld reports that the hospital group has partnered with medical...
Doctors back paediatrician’s account of Rahima Moosa collapse
Doctors have come out in support of an open letter by paediatrician Dr Tim De Maayer to the Department of Health, detailing how children...
NHI: Bill a step closer despite opposition’s objections
The Portfolio Committee on Health has voted to move forward with the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, reports News24, despite a negative response from...
Pfizer pledges cost price drugs to 45 lower-income countries
Pfizer will supply all of its current and future patent-protected medicines and vaccines on a not-for-profit basis to 45 lower-income countries and is talking...
Nurses union demands end to 'austerity measures'
Government’s austerity measures in the health sector will destroy lives, says the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union (Ynitu).
The union, which represents nurses and healthcare...
AfriForum Youth takes on HPCSA over outstanding certificates
AfriForum Youth’s legal team has sent an attorney’s letter to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to demand that Anneray Richards, a...
SA plans new e-cigarette and vaping rules
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has established a National Technical Committee (TC) to develop guidelines and standards on e-cigarette and vaping products.
BusinessTech...
First polio outbreak in Mozambique in 30 years
Health authorities in Mozambique declared an outbreak of wild poliovirus last Wednesday (18 May) after confirming that a child in the country’s north-eastern Tete...
Baby sleep products linked to 200 deaths now banned in the US
Popular, frequently used infant sleep products blamed for the deaths of more than 200 babies in the USA, are to be outlawed.
Last week President...
Poor security and power cuts cripple Soweto Clinic – DA
A female doctor was attacked by a patient last Thursday at the Lillian Ngoyi Clinic in Soweto, which has also suffered from power cuts...
Dis-Chem revenue tops R30bn for first time
South Africans’ return to larger malls, a better-than-anticipated uptake of its new health insurance offerings, opening a dozen new pharmacies, and adding three new...
Historic Durban hospital to be renamed after activist
Durban’s King Edward VIII Hospital is being renamed after political activist Victoria Mxenge, who had completed a midwifery course at the hospital and subsequently...
DoH tells Parliament: Thousands of SA’s children have died of malnutrition
Almost 3,000 South African children have died of malnutrition in the past three years and the statistics are unlikely to improve any time soon,...
AU pleads for support for African vaccine manufacturers
The African Union (AU) has called on international organisations to acquire at least 30% of the jabs produced by the continent for global distribution,...
European warning that two strains of Omicron from SA are ’variants of concern’
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has issued a warning that two strains of Omicron from South Africa have been labelled...
Board members unpaid for seven months despite E Cape Health’s R17m budget
Despite sitting on a R17m stipendiary budget, the Eastern Cape Health Department has not paid one cent of this to hospitals’ and clinics’ board...