Juta MedicalBrief

In response to scathing findings by the Public Protector, a committee has been established that will ensure long-delayed repairs at the fire-damaged Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital are expedited, promised Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Tuesday, after he, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi visited the facility, reports SA News. “As the national Department of Health, the National Treasury, the Premier’s Office in Gauteng, the provincial Department of Health and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) – who are the developers – we have a plan,” he announced. He said meetings would take place every Tuesday – chaired...

The Special Investigating Unit’s quest to claw back millions from controversial businessman Thapelo Buthelezi, who has frequently made headlines since 2018 and who was illegally awarded a slew of multimillion rand contracts for emergency medical services, is slowly reaping rewards, reports Daily Maverick. A number of Buthelezi’s assets have been frozen, most recently a property in a luxury estate in Meyersdal, Gauteng, and a farm in Parys, in the SIU’s efforts to recover R532m from the businessman, whose companies were illegally contracted for ambulance services. Last year, the Special Tribunal ruled against Buthelezi EMS and its affiliated companies, declaring the Free...

A Limpopo man whose leg was broken in a car crash in February is still waiting for orthopaedic surgery – just one among more than 600 people on the waiting list at Polokwane Hospital, where there’s a regional shortage of orthopaedic surgeons, reports Health-e News. The patient, who doesn’t remember the details of the accident that left him unconscious with a broken femur and shin, said he woke up in the WF Knobel Hospital in the Moletjie area, where he stayed for more than two months, receiving only painkillers. “The nurse said I was brought to the hospital by an ambulance....

The South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) has started a process to review the Pharmacy Human Resources Plan for South Africa and tackle shortcomings, including the pharmacist-to-population ratio – way below the global average and WHO recommendation of 1:2 300. In a presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Health last week, the SAPC said these include pharmaceutical services not being offered on a 24-hour basis in most hospitals; and pharmacist unemployment levels, despite a pressing need for pharmaceutical services. Also coming under the spotlight were council salaries and “corporate creep”. On the shortage of pharmacists in rural areas, the SAPC said pharmacists...

Wits University has defended a specialist training programme after a complaint from a trainee doctor, saying it meets national accreditation requirements but conceding that some administrative areas had been identified for improvement, reports the Sowetan. This comes as the Health Professions Council of South Africa launches an investigation into the allegations by Dr Edward Sepirwa, who enrolled in 2021 through a bursary-funded programme, but has complained about irregularities in the implementation of the Occupational Medicine specialist training programme, including concerns about registrar registration and training processes. Sepirwa was studying towards a Master’s of Medicine in Community Health qualification, registered under SAQA...

South Africa’s revised Immigration White Paper could make it even harder for undocumented migrants to access healthcare and other basic services in this country, say civil society groups, who have described the new policy as a “radical overhaul”, reports EWN. They’ve warned that the latest version of the Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection document – approved by Cabinet in March – could deepen the exclusion of non-South Africans, and even affect those South Africans who may have documentation problems. Groups representing migrants and healthcare activists argue the policy could entrench documentation checks and strengthen migration controls at a time when anti-immigrant...

The military governor of the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ituri province, the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak, has likened the struggle to contain the spread of the virus to a “war for which they are lacking resources to fight”, the BBC reports. “People in affected areas are not receiving enough food,” Johnny Luboya Nkashama told French broadcaster RFI, "and other diseases and overcrowding” are also issues. He called for a “swift response”, including strengthening the capacity of staff to prevent Ituri “from descending into catastrophe”. Officials say there are more than 900 suspected cases of Ebola, and 223 suspected deaths, since the...

The Gauteng Department of Health has not vetted nearly 40 000 staff who work with children, raising serious concerns about child safety and patient protection across the province’s public health system, according to a DA statement published on Polity. The party called for the department to urgently implement mandatory National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO) and National Child Protection Register (NCPR) checks for all staff working with children, audit all child-facing posts, disclose how many employees have never been screened, set a clear compliance timeline, and publicly report on corrective action. The statement, issued by DA Gauteng spokesperson for education Michael Waters, warned...

The Department of Health has said there is no need to panic after the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) detected two polio virus strains (VDPV3 and nOPV2-L) in wastewater samples from a treatment plant in Cape Town, reports News24. The findings were part of the NICD’s routine environmental and wastewater testing aimed at proactive, population-wide disease tracking, according to the department. “This entails analysing municipal sewage and water resources to detect emerging outbreaks and viral variants before clinical cases appear,” said spokesperson Foster Mohale. “These detections are called ‘vaccine events’ because no actual cases of the virus have been detected in...

Netcare is sprinting ahead with digitisation and AI, with CEO Richard Friedland saying the financial benefits of spending on these are already overtaking the initial implementation costs, reports News24. Talking to investors on Monday, he said this was just the beginning for the hospital group, which is eyeing even more efficiencies from machine learning, and whose app has been downloaded more than 1m times. Cumulative savings and cost avoidance as a result of AI and digitisation now total R705m, compared with an implementation spend of R670m, Friedland said, shortly after the hospital group grew revenue almost 5% to about R13.3bn in...

The total collapse of the National Health Laboratory Service appears imminent if provincial Health Departments owing it nearly R11bn don’t pay their high outstanding bills soon, reports News24. KwaZulu-Natal is the leading debtor, having racked up more than R4.8bn for lab services linked to testing, followed by Gauteng with R3.2bn and the Eastern Cape with more than R1.1bn. Only three provinces – the Western Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga – were lauded for satisfactory payment records. The entity’s senior management briefed Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health on Friday, revealing that the total outstanding amount was R10 995 254 375. Chief financial officer Phumeza Mayekiso...

Dis-Chem has become embroiled in a reputational furore after the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) launched a formal investigation into social media posts reportedly made by shareholder Mark Saltzman – son of the company’s original founders – in which he allegedly used the k-word, reports Daily Maverick. Saltzman is the son of founders Ivan and Lynette Saltzman, and although a shareholder in the group, holds no board or management position and, noted the company, has no authority to speak on its behalf. “His comments and conduct do not reflect the views, values or position of our board, management team or broader business,” Dis-Chem...

A complaint lodged with the South African Human Rights Commission has prompted action from the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health, which has now launched an investigation into conditions at Harry Gwala Hospital (also known as Edendale), reports The Witness. Allegations of staff intimidation, chronic shortages and risks to patient safety will be probed, said the department, adding that it is not taking the accusations of governance failures and deteriorating conditions lightly. Other complaints triggering intervention from the Premier’s Office include reports that staff are being pressured to bypass financial controls. Workers say they are being intimidated, encouraged to ignore proper procedures and...

Government has been slammed for its prevarication and failure to assist the HIV-positive victims of forced and coerced sterilisation, reports The Citizen. Local NGO Her Rights Initiative (HRI), a social impact organisation that advocates for the sexual and reproductive rights of women, says more than 100 HIV-positive women were sterilised without their consent between 2007 and 2023, and has accused the Department of Women, Youth & Persons with Disabilities of doing nothing to help the victims. A 2020 report by the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) found that the Department of Health had violated 26 laws, including those related to women’s...

Nearly half of the entire fleet of KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health ambulances is sitting in workshops awaiting repairs, with diagnostic delays, inflated parts replacement costs and a general lack of urgency from the contracted service provider being highlighted in a report to the Health Portfolio Committee. The Mercury reports that 224 of the fleet of 449 ambulances are out of service in a department that is frequently criticised for tardy response times, or non-arrival in emergencies. However, in detailing its challenges to the committee, the department attributed much of the blame to the fleet contractor, alluding to inferior repair work, lazy and...

A new era of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technological and breakthrough innovations will help the country fight HIV, TB and cervical cancer, said Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi at the recent SA Medical Association (SAMA) Health Summit in Durban. He said the 5 June rollout of Lenacapavir, the twice-yearly HIV prevention injection, was one of the most important developments in the 44-year-fight against HIV, reports The Mercury. Motsoaledi also revealed that South Africa would intensify its war against TB using portable AI-powered digital X-ray machines capable of operating in deep rural communities. Unlike conventional systems, these can analyse lung scans without requiring specialist...

A shortage of vital equipment like ventilators and basic examination lights is jeopardising the lives of patients at Tembisa Hospital, according to the DA, which is demanding urgent intervention at a facility also plagued by major staff shortages and vacant leadership posts, reports EWN. Additionally, said the party, only 40 of 213 vacant posts are currently being filled. DA spokesperson Jack Bloom also slammed delays in repairing areas damaged by a fire in April last year, saying that emergency and psychiatric patients were still being diverted to other, already overburdened, hospitals. “Tembisa has been terribly neglected since the looting of the more...

Former midwife Yolande Maritz Fouchee (48), who was convicted of culpable homicide and multiple assault charges, is to be sentenced today (Thursday) in the Gauteng High Court, reports News24. During sentencing proceedings on Monday, the state argued that she had shown no remorse and posed a high risk of reoffending, suggesting she be imprisoned for 15 years for culpable homicide; eight years for the charge of assault with forceps and involving a legal duty; five years for fraud and the assault with misoprostol injections; and a fine or 12 months’ imprisonment for the employment of an unqualified person concurrently. Fouche owned...

A formal complaint has been lodged with the SA Human Rights Commission by a man who was misdiagnosed with HIV a quarter of a century ago, and whose life fell apart as a direct consequence, reports IOL. Mark Johannes (56) said no one has ever been held accountable for his ordeal after the diagnosis from a doctor in 2001, when he was living in George. Believing he was facing a death sentence, the BMW car salesman lost his job, his family left him, and he gave up on life because he thought he was “going to die anyway”. In 2005, after spending...

The widower of a US woman who died after undergoing a mammoth 10-hour plastic surgery session that included a BBL and breast augmentation is suing the doctor and the outpatient facility, accusing them of negligence, reports People. Peter Ginnegar, from North Carolina, said he wanted to alert people to the dangers of “these types of surgeries in a non-hospital setting”, after the death of his wife, Joy Barbera (48). He said he had been awaiting a phone call from the clinic for news after her 10-hour surgery the day before, but instead, had received a call to say she had stopped...

One of Switzerland’s best known and largest facilities, University Hospital Zurich, has had its reputation besmirched in an unfolding scandal in which its own Board has filed criminal complaints for involuntary manslaughter and grievous bodily harm, marking a major development in an investigation involving at least 11 deaths and 13 cases linked to medical devices. The “Oberholzer report”, published earlier this month, found that between 2016 and 2020, there were about 4 500 operations at the hospital’s Clinic for Cardiac Surgery, and that within this window, the mortality rate surpassed statistical expectations by a shocking margin of 68 to 74...