Stockout of Depo-Testosterone is life threatening
Depo-Testosterone, an affordable injectable hormone, has been out of stock in South Africa for more than three months. The shortage has been described as life-threatening. Karin Schimke reports.
System-wide neglect of the transgender population
The recent stock-out of a hormone used in gender-affirming treatment for transgender men has revealed a system-wide neglect of a large sector of the South African population. Karin Schimke reports.
#Vote4Health: Still no end in sight to orthopaedic disaster in Free State
Orthopaedic surgery backlogs have become old news at Bloemfontein’s Pelonomi Hospital, but it’s still fresh hell for the patients admitted every day and forced to sleep on chairs, on floors and on stretchers pushed up against corridor walls waiting for beds, often for weeks.
#Vote4Health: Healthcare after the elections
Who will be South Africa’s next Minister of Health and what will be the impact of May’s national and provincial elections on South Africa’s ongoing health crisis?
#Vote4Health: Lusikisiki push for condoms in schools
In Luskikisiki in the Eastern Cape girls as young as 11 years old are falling pregnant and becoming HIV-infected, prompting renewed calls by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) that government condoms are distributed at primary schools. Biénne Huisman attended a community meeting in Lusikisiki.
Spotlight’s Vote4Health
In the run-up to South Africa’s general elections in May 2019 Spotlight will be publishing a series of articles under the banner #Vote4Health.
#Vote4Health: New hope as Lusikisiki finally gets a new clinic
In Lusikisiki, in the OR Tambo District of the Eastern Cape, the so-called Village Clinic had become emblematic of a faltering health system, in a rural area fraught with chronic illness and early death due to rapidly-spreading HIV and tuberculosis. Biénne Huisman went to Lusikiki to take the community’s temperature. Photographs, Halden Krog.
New guides to advocating in AIDS councils
Spotlight has developed two new advocacy guides for members of provincial or district AIDS councils. One focuses on TB prevention and the other on retention in care.
Silicosis: The names in Paragraph 7
Photographer Thom Pierce reflects on the news that 10 out the original 56 applicants in the silicosis class action have died. Pierce was a key part of a team that created the “Price of Gold” exhibition.
New science: Highlights from CROI2019
Last week the Conference for Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was held in Seattle, USA. Spotlight did not attend this year’s conference, but fortunately all CROI abstracts and presentations are made available online. Below we have picked some highlights of relevance for South Africa.
Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal Circulars on migrants may be a sign of things to come
OPINION: The first few days of March 2019 must have been a time of great uncertainty for migrants in South Africa in need of health care services. Circulars by the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal health departments said that all non-South Africans, other than refugees, would from now on have to pay in full for all health care services at public clinics and hospitals. By Sasha Stevenson
Vote4Health: Artist colony paints dull picture for rural healthcare
With less than 2 000 residents, one small government clinic and the nearest hospital 40 kilometres away, Hamburg residents in the small Eastern Cape hamlet are under strain. By Kathryn Cleary.