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Proposed budget cuts disastrous for health sector, activists warn
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana ruffled feathers last week with his letter to government departments directing a freeze on posts and other cost-cutting measures. MedicalBrief...
Free State worst performer in ARV dispensing, survey finds
The Free State is performing abysmally when it comes to dispensing ARVs, the percentage of HIV patients receiving a three to six-month supply of...
Bara stillbirth rate 17 times the national average – Wits study
Neonatal deaths at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital were as much as 12 times the national average, while the stillbirth rate among mothers whose pregnancy...
MTN cuts services to Eastern Cape Health, Afrox threatens to suspend
MTN last month joined the list of service providers to temporarily withdraw services because the Eastern Cape Department of Health failed to pay its...
UCT team develops device to speed up STI diagnosis
A research group from the University of Cape Town (UCT) is developing a user-friendly technology to rapidly detect bacterial vaginosis (BV) and associated genital...
Frustrated Free State community closes clinic
Community members in a section of Botshabelo in the Free State closed their local clinic last Wednesday in protest against a staff shortage at...
Top HIV experts call for PrEP to be prescribed by all nurses and midwives
With 1.5m global incident HIV infections in 2021 – of which 210 000 were in South Africa – there is an urgent need to...
Violent attacks prompt special training for Gauteng healthcare staff
Violence against staff – doctors, nurses, paramedics – and patients, has become an occupational hazard at government hospitals and clinics in South Africa. After...
Experts call for hepatitis B birth-dose vaccine
Despite one in 20 South Africans being infected with the hepatitis B virus – which causes about 820 000 deaths a year globally and...
Lack of supplies and care for desperate SA stoma patients
The ongoing shortage of colostomy pouches in the public health system, where some desperate patients resort to plastic bags glued and taped to their...
Free State infant malnutrition and deaths from starvation on the rise
Free State infants are still dying from a lack of healthy food, with 21 having died from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) between April and...
Germany eyes SA-trained nurses – with government's blessing
Government is in talks with Germany to employ SA-trained nurses to fill vacancies in Europe’s largest economy, while, at home, the shortage of nurses,...
How independent is SA's new Health Ombudsman?
South Africa’s new Health Ombud took on his role this month as some health activists questioned his political allegiances with the ANC, his numerous...
'Dysfunctional and an embarrassment' – outgoing Ombudsman on health departments
In a blistering reflection of the public health sector after seven years in the job, outgoing Health Ombudsman Professor Malegapuru Makgoba labelled the system...
Special interventions to tackle state surgeries backlogs
With state hospitals across the country buckling under a mounting backlog of surgeries, special interventions are being made to tackle the problem which has...
Unsafe national water supply sparks fears of larger cholera spread
As the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) warns that more cholera cases are likely, Amnesty International has condemned the outbreak that has killed...
Private sector frustration as nursing staff flock to greener pastures
As countries across Africa count the cost of an exodus of talent from its fragile healthcare sectors to richer countries, the situation in South...
No funding model yet, but NHI gets big chunk of health budget
There is still no sign of a cost model for the National Health Insurance (NHI), but a large proportion of this year's much-reduced health...
Poor diet puts SA children at risk of lifestyle diseases – Gqeberha study
A startling 43% of primary schoolchildren in Gqeberha run the risk of diseases like malnutrition, high blood pressure, diabetes and unhealthy cholesterol levels, according...
Loneliness as hazardous as smoking, obesity, US Surgeon-General warns
Loneliness presents a profound public health threat akin to smoking and obesity, US Surgeon-General Vivek Murthy warned in an advisory this week, and could...
Bara borrows food to address critical shortages
The Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital was this week thrust into the spotlight again, this time over a drastic shortage of food for patients...
Eastern Cape hospitals flounder under surgical backlogs and massive debts
Eastern Cape hospitals are battling to stay afloat, with seemingly little hope of catching up on massive surgical backlogs, and the Health Department owing...
EU agency flags carcinogenic compounds found in everyday food
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a warning that cancer-causing chemical compounds called nitrosamines have been detected in various everyday foods, particularly...
Healthcare workers on losing end after chaotic strike
After a disruptive strike which cost four people their lives, healthcare workers are no better off as the chaos caused has not resulted in...
South African children's height and BMI a cause for concern, say researchers
The mean height of South African boys’ has stagnated, and both boys and girls in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa have gone from being...
Doctors flag high death risk as Rahima Moosa dysfunctionality exposed
As the full horror of the conditions at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital (RMMCH) unfolded with the release of a damning report, and...
Deaths blamed on violent, reckless thuggery of striking healthcare workers
Whatever sympathy striking healthcare workers hoped to achieve in support of their many grievances has almost certainly been dashed by their violent, intimidatory and...
Callous disregard at 'dirty', 'filthy', 'unsafe' Rahima Moosa – Ombud
After a year-long investigation, the Health Ombudsman has made damning findings against the CEO of the Rahima Moosa Mother & Child Hospital, saying the...
Hospitals and patients bear the brunt of disruptive Nehawu strike
While the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) received sympathy for the issues over which its members went on strike this week,...
High rate of eating disorders among children – global meta-analysis
In the first global analysis of its kind, involving 63 000 participants in 32 studies from 16 countries, researchers have found that more than...
Hospitals to be exempt from load shedding but it won't happen overnight
The good news is that hospitals are among the entities to be exempted from load-shedding under the national State of Disaster regulations promulgated this...
Ecology, not antibiotic consumption, the main driver of resistance – French study
The spread of antibiotic resistance may not be primarily driven by antibiotic consumption, according to scientists, who suggest instead that its spread across Europe...
HSPCA criticised for 'limp' sanction for Limpopo MEC
The caution and reprimand issued by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to Limpopo Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba after last year’s viral...
Legal action threat as hospitals struggle with load shedding
As healthcare workers continue to feel the brunt of ongoing load shedding, a union is threatening to take government to court over the widespread...
Hospital patients undernourished and underfed – SA study
More than half of the patients admitted to South Africa’s public hospitals are undernourished – and most of them are the same, if not...
Health facilities under strain with no end soon to rolling power cuts
As South Africa plummets towards a potential shift to stage eight load shedding, healthcare organisations warn of the drastic effects of rolling power cuts...
WHO urges action to stem rising AMR as experts call for new neonatal drugs
In yet another grim report about rising levels of resistance to bacteria, experts warn that by 2050 an estimated 10m people will die annually...
Rising antibiotic-resistant infections prompt global study with SA hospitals
As experts sound the alarm over rising antibiotic resistance, which, according to The Lancet, was directly responsible for 1.3m deaths in 2019, the Medical...
Helen Joseph doctors’ plea for action as hospital in 'dire straits'
Doctors at the Helen Joseph Hospital (HJH) say they are on the frontline of another kind of “pandemic”: a crisis that threatens to collapse...
Urgent action needed to reduce ARV clinic stockouts – Treatment Action Campaign
At least nine Free State clinics have run out of antiretroviral medication in the past three months, and an increasing number of patients are...