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News Update
Emergency service regulations published for comment
Draft emergency health service regulations that have been published in the Government Gazette for comment within three months (Notice R585, Government Gazette 37869) propose...
SANDF is bleeding medical staff
SA’s military is losing doctors to the national Department of Health, the private sector and to other countries at an alarming rate. City Press...
Australia luring UK medical staff
A survey found that no fewer than half of the UK’s National Health Service nurses had thought about quitting their job, with many considering...
Cape Town researcher investigating trauma victims’ sleep patterns
Gosia Lipinksa at the University of Cape Town’s Sleep Sciences lab is trying to tease out the relationship between the disordered sleep patterns often...
Mental health – ‘the orphan of SA’s healthcare system’
Its special investigation has uncovered the ‘shocking state’ of mental health in SA, reports the Sunday Times. It writes that one third of all...
SA women line up for new contraceptive
Such was the demand in SA for a newly introduced female contraceptive implant that stocks have run dry at some clinics, reports Daily Maverick....
UK elderly denied life-saving operations
Elderly people are being denied life-saving operations because of age discrimination within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), the Royal College of Surgeons and...
Harsh laws pushing Uganda’s Aids fight backwards – activists
Activists warn that inadequate funding coupled with harsh laws targeting same sex unions could erode the gains made in the fight against HIV in...
UK’s NHS making millions out of medical tourism
Medical tourism is a lucrative source of income for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). The Guardian reports that a major new study contradicts...
Research project tackling respiratory antibiotic resistance
A new research project (PneumoNP) is aimed at tackling antibiotic resistance in respiratory tract infections via the use of inhalable nanother apeutic compounds, reports...
Scientists describe new type of TB treatment
Scientists are describing a new type of tuberculosis (TB) treatment that involves manipulating the body's response to TB bacteria rather than targeting the bacteria...
Children benefit more from nasal spritz than flu shot
Giving children ages 2 to 8 the flu vaccine via a nasal spray offers better protection than the traditional shot. Health24 reports that according...
Lack of herd immunity allowing measles to spread in the US
Measles cases in the United States are at their highest levels since 2000, when the disease was declared eliminated. This year 514 cases have...
British GPs failing to spot cancer to be ‘named and shamed’
General Practitioners in the United Kingdom who repeatedly fail to spot crucial signs of cancer are to be named and shamed under radical new...
Free State and Gauteng Health departments in turmoil
As of June, the Free State’s Bloemfontein medicine depot had run out more than 200 essential drugs and supplies including HIV testing kits, at...
Lucrative offers luring SA paramedics overseas
Paramedics are leaving SA in droves for lucrative jobs overseas, where some are earning as much as R85,000 a month. A Sunday Times report...
Resistance to high costs making US pharma market more competitive
Determined to slow the rapid rise in drug prices, more health plans in the US are refusing to cover certain drugs unless the companies...
Lapse in procedure causes anthrax safety breach
The safety breach at a US government lab that may have exposed 84 workers to live anthrax centred on a pivotal lapse in procedure:...
Ebola outbreak hits ‘unprecedented’ proportions
The deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has hit 'unprecedented' proportions, according to relief workers on the ground, reports CNN. 'The epidemic is...
UK proposing ‘wilful neglect’ law for care staff
Care staff in the UK who wilfully neglect patients under their supervision could face time in jail and expensive fines from 2015. People Management...
Doctors ‘need not panic about certificate of need’ – Health Department
Doctors do not need to panic about being forced to work in places where they do not want to, according to the Department of...
TB a ‘public health emergency’ – activists
Tuberculosis should be declared a public health emergency and ‘war rooms’ should be set up in each province to deal with the disease. And...
PE women lauded for response to contraceptive implant
Port Elizabeth doctors are lauding women for their enthusiastic response to a new contraceptive implant, saying it is a major boost for the fight...
Lack of machine maintenance puts KZN cancer patients at risk
The maintenance contract for two state-of-the-art cancer radiotherapy machines at a Durban hospital has not been paid for the past 11 months. News24 reports...
Surprisingly few doctors wash their hands when they should
Doctors only wash their hands 40% of the time they are supposed to, global studies have shown. The Times reports that Groote Schuur Hospital’s...
Newborns in the UK infected by contaminated liquid food
A newborn baby has died and 14 others are suffering from blood poisoning after they were infected by a contaminated batch of liquid food...
Warning on the urgency of repairing KZN radiotherapy machines
Dr Imran Keeka, the Democratic Alliance’s KZN provincial spokesperson on health, has noted in a Politicsweb report that the second of two radiotherapy machines...
AspIrin not the drug of choice for atrial fibrillation sufferers – Nice
More than a million people with heart rhythm disorders have been told not to take aspirin to guard against stroke, in a reversal of...
The statins debate continues
A group of doctors in the UK is calling for a rethink on an NHS proposal that people at low risk of heart disease...
Smartphone apps increasing STD risk
Ga y and bisexual men who use smartphone apps to meet other men for sex are at an increased risk of some se xually...
‘Alarming’ shortages at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital – Health MEC
Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu has admitted the biggest hospital in the southern Hemisphere, Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, is short...
No quota system at new SA private medical university
KwaZulu-Natal is poised to get SA’s first private medical university and newly elected premier Senzo Mchunu is quoted in the Sunday Tribune as saying,...
Depression rising in SA men
Burnout and depression among men are hidden – and rising – afflictions in SA, reports The Times. The number of men admitted to private...
Number of cancer survivors is rising in the US
The number of cancer survivors in the US will rise from the current 14.5m to nearly 19m by 2024. Medicinenet reports that a survey...
Superbugs found in the Middle East
University of Queensland researchers have discovered antibiotic resistant bacteria in the Middle East, which is cloaking itself in genetic material to avoid detection and...
Cannabis could be used to treat severe epilepsy
The potential of medical marijuana and pure cannabidiol – an active substance in the cannabis plant – for neurologic conditions is highly controversial. However,...
Free State orthopaedic patients facing painful delays
Patients at the orthopaedic unit of Pelonomi Regional Hospital in Bloemfontein face painful delays. A Sunday Times report says 34 patients with fractured bones...
Most South Africans ignorant of hypertension risk
Three out of four men in SA with hypertension (high blood pressure) don’t know that they have the condition. And, says a Mail &...
Large study to look at impact of mobile phone use on teenagers
Schoolchildren in London will be recruited into the largest ever study to investigate the impact of mobile phone use on teenagers’ developing brains. The...
Questions raised on usage of new US cancer drug
Almost overnight, a powerful new painkiller has become a $100m business. But, reports The New York Times, questions are emerging about how the drug...