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Medical aid increases will be 'well above inflation'
Medical aid increases well above inflation are expected to hit members in 2019. Business Tech reports that according to data from medical aid companies,...
Outbreak that killed 9 babies was 'kept secret'
Nine babies died at a Johannesburg hospital from necrotising enterocolitis only a few months before a klebsiella outbreak killed six new-borns in a Vosloorus...
Parliament wants intervention over SA medical students in Cuba and Russia
A multiparty delegation from Parliament is currently in Cuba and has unanimously agreed that intervention is required to address the concerns of SA...
CMS wants single medical scheme for public servants
The Council for Medical Schemes is proposing consolidation of all medical schemes for public servants into the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) in line...
Report on 'places for sale' at UKZN remains secret
The forensic report into the alleged ‘places for sale’ scandal at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's medical school will remain under wraps for now.
News24 reports...
Claims data tracks SA's cancer explosion
Cancer causes more deaths in South Africa than HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined, with the average of cost of a cancer case up 17%...
BHF research paints worrying picture of exiting doctors
Older public sector doctors are leaving to practice privately but are not staying too long, instead opting out of medicine entirely before the age...
Drug prices, not patients, fuelling cost spiral — Mediscor review
The annual Mediscor review says that growing expenditure on medicines is largely driven by higher prices, not because people are sicker and using more products,...
Survey finds large number of doctors considering leaving SA
A survey by the union Solidarity’s Research Institute found that more than 80% of healthcare practitioners believe that the government’s planned National Health Insurance scheme...
SA med students vow not to return to Russian ‘sangoma hut’
A group of 53 medical students from Mpumalanga being funded by the provincial government to study in Russia have vowed not to return to...
Substantial number of community service doctors still unemployed — SAMA
At a time when South Africa's hospitals are faced with critical staff shortages which impacts on the health-care system, some intern and community service...
Wits team claims breakthrough in Alzheimer's research
A breakthrough by a team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) could see patients with Alzheimer’s using a nasal spray to...
Med schemes want Health Dept to reject drug price increases
Medical schemes have appealed to the national Health Department to reject pharmaceutical manufacturers’ request for an extra price increase for medicines, arguing they are...
NHI: Leave it to me, Ramaphosa tells SA's healthcare leaders
President Cyril Ramaphosa has told helalthcare industry leaders that he would personally be overseeing the implementation of the National Health Insurance scheme and that...
IRR calls on South Africans to oppose NHI
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has invited South Africans to endorse a submission opposing the National Health Insurance (NHI).
The IRR says: “All South...
In 7 years, Discovery cancer diagnoses increase 45%
Cancer diagnoses among Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) members – the country’s largest medical insurance scheme – increased by 45% between 2011 and 2017, says...
Motsoaledi: Criminals are clogging SA's mental health system
Criminals were putting extreme pressure on the already strained mental-health system in South Africa. The Times reports that this is according to Minister of...
SA's medicines regulator hobbled by protestor shutdown
Picketing protestors are preventing pharmaceutical companies from lodging submissions for the registration of medicines and special permits that allow critically ill patients to be treated...
Contraceptive roulette at SA's state clinics
State clinics and healthcare facilities around South Africa continue to experience a shortage of injectable contraceptives, despite the Health Department claiming it had “enough”...
Parliamentary committee appalled by KZN Health 'disaster' clinic
Parliament’s portfolio committee on health says it is appalled by conditions at a clinic in Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal which it described as a “disaster”...
Traditional surgeons criticise Customary Initiation Bill
Traditional doctors expressed strong reservations about the Customary Initiation Bill at the first public hearings in Port Elizabeth.
SABC News reports that traditional surgeons raised...
85 KZN Health staff 'off sick' for 5,007 days in five months
A written parliamentary reply to questions by the Democratic Alliance (DA) has revealed that 85 staff members within KwaZulu-Natal Health have amassed a staggering 5,007...
Medical aid scheme ‘a slush fund’ for curator
The trustees of Samwumed, a medical scheme for unionised municipal workers, are contesting the curatorship order on the scheme, while some of its members...
Life Esidimeni pay-outs expected to top R1bn
The Gauteng government might end up paying more than R1bn to compensate families of the victims of the Life Esidimeni tragedy, the province says
The...
SA science research output significantly improved — Stellenbosch report
South Africa's science performance in terms of publication output, international collaboration and citation impact over the past 17 years has improved significantly, finds a Stellenbosch...
#FeesMustFall students destroyed Mayosi, family tells mourners
Political fallout around the suicide of the dean of the University of Cape Town's (UCT's) faculty of Health Sciences, Professor Bongani Mayosi, continued at...
International experts highlight ‘significant weakness’ in SA Tobacco Bill
In a last-minute submission on the SA Tobacco Bill, international academics argue that the Bill does not sufficiently differentiate between nicotine products of widely...
Med schemes not delivering value for money, say members
Consumers feel they get less value for money from medical schemes than they do with other financial services, such as short-term insurance. Business Day...
Gauteng Health drags its heels on professional misconduct reports
Half of the doctors and nurses responsible for the Life Esidimeni tragedy still have not been reported to their professional associations, Bhekisisa reports.
The tragedy...
'Dead' accident victim would likely have survived – autopsy report
A damning report by a forensic pathologist has revealed that there was a “good possibility” that Msizi Mkhize could have survived the car accident...
BRICS vaccine centre to be based in SA
BRICS bloc countries have given South Africa the nod for a state-of-the-art vaccine centre to be established in the country, says an IoL report....
KZN hospital CEO's lucrative moonlighting
A hospital CEO in northern KwaZulu-Natal – who earns an annual salary of more than R1.5m – has been pocketing R47,000 a month in...
Rocky start for NHI tender programme
The first tenders for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHI) have been issued, but only three medical scheme administrators pitched for the compulsory information...
Portal debacle frustrates doctors applying for community service
The SA Health Department’s application portal for doctors hoping to apply for community service positions next year is such a mess that hundreds of...
SAHRC mulls full-scale Gauteng health system inquiry
The SA Human Rights Commission says is considering a full-scale inquiry into the health system in Gauteng, because of 'recurring challenges', reports The Times....
The 20 Life Esidimeni patients still missing are 'probably dead'
Gauteng Health still cannot locate 20 state mental health patients it removed from Life Esidimeni facilities almost three years ago and they are "probably...
Hospital will ponder doctor's 'white mentality' comments
Bela Bela Hospital management said it would reflect on allegedly racist comments made by a doctor to Democratic Alliance (DA) MP and spokesperson for...
SA could see more cases of swine flu this season
According to a Weekend Argus report, local health authorities are predicting that South Africa is not likely to have the virulent H3N3 flu virus that...
37,000 public health sector posts remain unfilled
South Africa has not filled over 37,000 posts in the public health sector, according to monitoring by the the Treatment Action Campaign.
A Free State...
NHI Bill could push more anaesthetists to leave SA
Data shows that almost a fifth of the country’s 2826 specialist anaesthesiologists are “vulnerable to move or leave South Africa” and, says the SA...