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News Update
Pay-as-you-go: Evaluators hold SAHPRA to account with encrypted reports
Public health experts working part time for the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) are encrypting their reports in a bid to force...
Average British GP sees a ‘worrying’ drop in hours worked but earnings increase
The average British GP is now working a three-day week after a “significant” drop in working hours but earnings are up to a yearly...
Carletonville Hospital blaze was arson — Gauteng Health MEC
Arson was the cause of the blaze that destroyed equipment worth R20m in a storeroom at the Carletonville Hospital in February, according to the...
Speculation of Gauteng 'Mafia' link to murder of Babita Deokaran
The murder of Gauteng Health whistle-blower Babita Deokaran in August may have been linked to a politically connected Gauteng mafia, Daily Maverick reports. And...
MSD to seek SAHPRA approval for its promising COVID-19 pill
Pharmaceutical manufacturer MSD has confirmed it is to seek authorisation for its COVID-19 treatment molnupiravir from SA’s medicines regulator. If approved, the pill, molnupiravir,...
Mediclinic and Life Healthcare mandate vaccination for staff and service providers
Private hospital groups Mediclinic and Life Healthcare have introduced COVID-19 vaccination policies for staff and service providers, joining an increasing number of JSE-listed companies...
IFP demands that KZN institutes measures to protect under-fire paramedics
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in KwaZulu-Natal has challenged the KZN MEC for Health, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu, to tell the public what plans are in...
Phaahla: Third wave of pandemic lasted 120-days but is now over
Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla says that South Africa has now exited the 120-day long third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is with a...
Gauteng Health MEC: 143 babies abandoned at Gauteng hospitals in 2020
Last year, 143 babies were abandoned at Gauteng's public hospitals and currently there are 36 infants abandoned at different hospitals in the province, Health...
South African medical schemes: the biggest winners and losers in 2020
The Council for Medical Schemes’ latest annual report shows that the Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) remains the biggest in the country, despite having...
HPCSA disciplinary committee rulings for the third-quarter of 2021
A doctor fined for sexual impropriety, another for a spurious medical certificate, and a third for failing to diagnose herpes; a dentist fined for...
SA’s digital vaccine certificate launched without fanfare
SA’s digital COVID-19 vaccine certificate, which features a scannable QR code, has been launched by the Department of Health, reports Business Insider. The COVID-19...
COVID-level relaxation: More about elections than science, say sceptics
The decision to move South Africa back to alert level one after a 130-day COVID-19 third wave, has been questions by some medical experts,...
New Zealand abandons its ‘COVID-zero’ policies in the face of Delta
New Zealand has abandoned its policy of COVID-elimination and will instead shift its focus towards a “contain and control” approach after Prime Minister Jacinda...
The cost of lockdown: Britain records 70,000 non-COVID ’extra deaths’
The number of excess deaths in Britain is far higher than would be expected at this time of the year and COVID-19 is not...
Dickason tragedy: Further mental observation and trial date
Former Pretoria GP and mother Lauren Anne Dickason, 40, accused of killing her three daughters in New Zealand, has been referred for further mental...
Cape Town mayor joins Western Cape calls for total lifting of SA’s State of Disaster
Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato has called for a total lifting of South Africa’s State of Disaster, supporting the appeal by the Western Cape...
Paramedic dead and colleague wounded in KZN shooting
KZN police are investigating one case of murder and another of attempted murder after a female paramedic was shot dead and another critically injured...
Protests after psychiatric patient (15) raped at Stellenbosch Hospital
The family of a teenager allegedly raped at Stellenbosch Hospital, where she is receiving psychiatric treatment, on Friday (October 1) called for the suspension...
Eastern Cape Health ordered to reinstate Fort England Psychiatric’s CEO
Eastern Cape Health will have to reinstate former Fort England psychiatric hospital CEO Dr Roger Walsh and back pay him three years’ salary and...
DRC president responds to damning WHO report about sex-for-job scandal
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi wants “frank” co-operation in a probe of allegations of rape and sexual abuse by WHO workers sent to fight Ebola...
Price regulation in private medical care shouldn’t wait for NHI
The private medical sector should start price regulation without waiting for the National Health Insurance (NHI) regime, according to a panel member of the...
Eastern Cape Health MEC wants women to deny sex to unvaccinated men
Eastern Cape Health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth has said one way to get more men to vaccinate is that women, especially unmarried ones, withhold sex...
Gauteng Health murder suspect on full salary while behind bars
One of the six men alleged to have murdered Gauteng Health whistleblower Babita Deokaran, has been on full salary while behind bars because his...
WHO staff in DRC offered women jobs in exchange for sex
More than 80 cases of sexual abuse – including nine accounts of rape – have been identified in a damning report into sexual exploitation...
SA’s women doctors are ‘physical and emotional punching bags’ for patients and colleagues
Female medical professionals, doctors in particular, are increasingly becoming “physical and emotional punch bags” for some patients and even male colleagues, reports the Sunday...
SA’s new political party says ‘vulnerable poor blacks’ being manipulated over vaccinations
The Shosholoza Progressive Party (Shosh), formed in 2015, is calling for South Africans to defend their right to choose by refusing mandatory vaccination and...
Long NHS waiting lists in the UK force the desperate to seek private healthcare
NHS waiting lists have grown by 50% in some areas of the UK since the pandemic started, increasingly forcing people to resort to private...
J&J shortage slows SAʼs vaccine drive further
South Africa’s already stalled COVID-19 vaccination programme is being further delayed by a critical shortage of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines, a result of...
Cyril Ramaphosa: Global distribution of vaccines 'unjust and immoral'
While South Africa welcomed the donations and sharing of vaccines to developing countries, President Cyril Ramaphosa told an international summit that developing countries should...
Former Chatsworth hospital employee charged with theft of R250,000 dialysis machine
A Durban man has been arrested after allegedly stealing and selling a dialysis machine from a hospital in Chatsworth, writes SA Police Service/strong> in...
Wuhan scientists planned to release coronavirus into bat caves: Leaked papers
Wuhan and US scientists planned to release enhanced airborne coronavirus particles into Chinese bat populations to inoculate them against diseases that could jump to...
Second J & J shot substantially boosts protection against COVID, company reports
A second dose of Johnson & Johnsonʼs vaccine substantially increases its protection against COVID-19, said J&J in a statement. The New York Times reports...
Portugal: Fury over govt’s plans to lower medical training standards
Portugal’s medical organisations have responded with fury to the government’s plans for a new doctor-training model that would cut curriculum requirements and length of...
Post Office workers and pensioners face loss of medical aid cover
About 15,000 SA Post Office (Sapo) employees and pensioners may have no medical aid from next month after the Medipos medical scheme told them...
CMS ponders approval of first ever cut in medical aid premiums
Medical aid role players are looking to the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) to see if it will approve what is described as the...
3,000 French healthcare workers suspended for no COVID shot
Thousands of healthcare workers across France have been suspended without pay for failing to get a required COVID-19 vaccine, according to a report on...
SA medical scientists scoff at UK’s red list claims
South African scientists have challenged the UK for using inaccurate claims about the prevalence in SA of a COVID-19 variant that can “circumvent” vaccines...
Charlotte Maxeke cardiac unit dysfunctional and high-risk
The Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital pacemaker lab has been declared structurally unsafe, says Bongiwe Gambu, spokesperson for the MEC for the Gauteng department...
Sale of AstraZeneca vaccines ‘resulted in up to 22,000 deaths’ of SA elderly
The lives of 18,000 to 22,000 elderly South Africans could have been saved had the country not sold 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca...